Never Go Back: (Jack Reacher 18)

by Child, Lee

  Sullivan kept her briefcase closed, and her hands clasped on top of it. She said, ‘I won’t represent you in the Moorcroft assault. In fact I really don’t want you as a client at all.’

  Reacher didn’t answer. He was checking what he could hear from the corridor. Which wasn’t much, but was maybe enough.

  Sullivan said, ‘Major?’

  Reacher said, ‘I’m what they’re giving you, so get used to it.’

  ‘Colonel Moorcroft is a friend of mine.’

  ‘Your old teacher?’

  ‘One of them.’

  ‘Then you know what those guys are like. In their heads they’re never out of the classroom. Socratic, or whatever they call it. He was yanking my chain, for the sake of it. He was arguing for the fun of it, because that’s what they do. You left, and then he said he was going to file the paperwork as soon as he finished his toast. He intended to all along. But straight answers aren’t his style.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. No paperwork was filed this morning.’

  ‘The last I saw of him he was walking out of the dining room. About two minutes after you.’

  ‘So you’re denying this one too?’

  ‘Think about it, counsellor. My aim was to get Major Turner out of her cell. How would attacking Moorcroft help me? It would set me back at least a day, if not two or three.’

  ‘Why do you care so much about Major Turner?’

  ‘I liked her voice on the phone.’

  ‘Maybe you were angry with Moorcroft.’

  ‘Did I look angry?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘You’re wrong, major. I didn’t look angry at all. Because I wasn’t angry. I was sitting there quite patiently. He wasn’t the first classroom guy I ever met. I went to school, after all.’

  ‘I felt uncomfortable.’

  ‘What did you tell Podolski?’

  ‘Just that. There was a dispute, and I felt uncomfortable.’

  ‘Did you tell him it was heated?’

  ‘You confronted him. You argued.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do? Stand up and salute? He’s not exactly the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.’

  ‘The evidence against you appears to be considerable. The clothes, in particular. That’s classic.’

  Reacher didn’t answer. He was listening again. He heard footsteps in the corridor. Two people. Both men. Low voices. Short, uncontroversial sentences. A succinct and everyday exchange of information. The footsteps moved on. There were no door sounds. No click, no grind, no swish.

  Sullivan said, ‘Major?’

  Reacher said, ‘Do you have a wallet in your briefcase?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘Because you’re not carrying a purse, and if you don’t mind me saying so, your uniform is tailored very close to your figure, and there are absolutely no bulges in your pockets.’

  Sullivan kept her hands on her briefcase and said, ‘Yes, I have a wallet in here.’

  ‘How much money is in it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Thirty dollars, maybe.’

  ‘How much was your last ATM withdrawal?’

  ‘Two hundred.’

  ‘Got a cell phone in there too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then there’s as much evidence against you as me. Clearly you called an accomplice and offered him a hundred and seventy bucks to kick your old teacher’s ass. Maybe because your grades weren’t perfect, all those years ago. Maybe you were still angry about it.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying.’

  Sullivan didn’t answer.

  Reacher asked, ‘How were your grades?’

  Sullivan said, ‘Not perfect.’

  Reacher listened again. Silence in the corridor.

  Sullivan said, ‘Detective Podolski will order a landfill search. He’ll find your clothes. It won’t be difficult. Last in, first out. Will they stand up to DNA analysis?’

  ‘Easily,’ Reacher said. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  Then: more footsteps in the corridor. Soft, quiet, two people. A procession, maybe. One person leading another. A halt, an explanation, a casual, low-toned, ten-beat sentence. Maybe: This one, colonel. The other one’s in use. And: door sounds. The crisp metallic click of the handle, the slick grind of the hinges, and the suck of the silicone seal.

  The arrival of a lawyer. Turner’s, for sure. Because she was the only other customer in the place. While Reacher’s lawyer was still in the building. His first lawyer, yet. So far, so good.

  Heads and heads.

  Score two.

  Reacher said, ‘Tell me about the Rodriguez affidavit.’

  Sullivan said, ‘An affidavit is a sworn statement of fact.’

  ‘I know that,’ Reacher said. ‘Like I told your old pal Moorcroft, this stuff isn’t brain surgery. Affidavit is Latin for he has declared upon oath. But does it really speak from beyond the grave? In a practical sense? Real world?’

  For the first time Sullivan took her hands off her briefcase. She rocked them from side to side. Equivocal. All kinds of academic gestures. Maybe, maybe not. She said, ‘In American jurisprudence it’s fairly unusual to rely on an unsupported affidavit, especially if the person who swore it out is unavailable for cross-examination. But it can be allowed, if the interests of justice demand it. Or the interests of public relations, if you want to be cynical. And the prosecution will argue that Rodriguez’s affidavit is not exactly unsupported, anyhow. They have the daily summary from the 110th’s files, showing your visit with him, and they have the ER report from immediately afterwards, showing the results of it. They’ll claim the three things together present a seamless and coherent narrative.’

  ‘Can you argue against that?’

  ‘Of course,’ Sullivan said. ‘But our argument looks suddenly very weak, dynamically. What they’re going to say makes perfect sense, in an everyday way. This happened, then this happened, then this happened. We’ll need to take out the middle this and replace it with something that sounds very unlikely on its face. As in, you left, and someone else just happened to show up in the same place at the same time and beat the guy to a pulp.’

  Reacher didn’t answer. He was listening again.

  Sullivan said, ‘Our problem is whether an attempted defence that fails will annoy the court to the point where you get a worse sentence than you would have gotten with the plea bargain. Which is a serious risk. My advice is to play safe and take the deal. Two years is better than five or ten.’

  Reacher didn’t answer. He was still listening. At first, to nothing. Just silence. Then: more footsteps in the corridor. Two people. One following the other.

  Sullivan said, ‘Major?’

  Then: door sounds. The same door. The same crisp metallic click of the handle, the same slick grind of the hinges, the same suck of the silicone seal. Then a pause, and the same sounds all over again, in the reverse sequence, as the door closed. And then: one set of footsteps, walking away.

  So now Turner was in the next-door room with her lawyer, and the corridor was empty.

  Showtime.

  Reacher said, ‘I have a serious problem with my cell, counsellor. You really need to come see it.’

  EIGHTEEN

  SULLIVAN ASKED, ‘WHAT kind of a problem do you have with your cell?’ She said it a little wearily, but not impatiently. She wasn’t dismissing the matter out of hand. Defence lawyers dealt with all kinds of bullshit. Suspects were always looking for an edge or an angle. For the inevitable appeal. Any imagined slight or unfairness had to be investigated and evaluated. Reacher knew that. He knew how the game was played.

  He said, ‘I don’t want to put something in your mind. I don’t want to pre-empt your honest opinion. I need you to see this for yourself.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘OK,’ she said, a little wearily.

  She stood up. She stepped ov
er to the door. She pressed the buzzer.

  She left her briefcase on the table.

  Reacher stood up and waited behind her.

  One minute.

  Two.

  Then the narrow glass window in the door darkened, and the door opened up, and the duty captain said, ‘All done, counsellor?’

  Sullivan said, ‘No, he has a problem with his cell.’

  The tall guy looked at Reacher, with a quizzical expression on his face, part resigned, part surprised, as if to say, Really? You? This old shit?

  But he said, ‘OK, whatever. Let’s go take a look.’

  Like he had to. He knew how the game was played.

  Reacher led the way. Sullivan went next. The tall guy brought up the rear. They walked in single file, through the dog-legs, left and then right, to the cell door, which was unlocked and unbolted, because Reacher wasn’t in it. Reacher pulled it open and held it for the others. The tall guy smiled and took the door from him and gestured: after you. He was dumb, but not brain damaged.

  Reacher went in first. Then came Sullivan. Then the tall guy. Reacher stopped and pointed.

  ‘Over there,’ he said. ‘In the crack.’

  Sullivan said, ‘What crack?’

  ‘In the floor, near the wall. Under the window.’

  Sullivan stepped forward. The tall guy stopped short of the bed. Sullivan said, ‘I don’t see a crack.’

  Reacher said, ‘There’s something in it. It’s wriggling.’

  Sullivan froze. The tall guy leaned in. Human nature. Reacher leaned the other way, just a subtle drift, but the tall guy’s mass was moving one way, and Reacher’s the other. Reacher shoved the guy, below his shoulder, on his upper arm, hard, like a swimmer pushes off the end of the pool, and the guy went down over the bed like he was falling off a pair of stilts. Sullivan spun around and Reacher stepped to the door, and out to the corridor, and closed the door and bolted it.

  Then he ran back, awkward in his laceless boots, past the room with Sullivan’s briefcase in it, to the next room. He stood well back and looked in through the narrow rectangular window.

  And saw Susan Turner for the first time.

  She was worth the wait, he thought.

  Totally worth it.

  She was sitting on the right-hand side of the table. She was wearing army combat uniform, with all the hook-and-loop tapes and tags pulled off, and tan combat boots, with no laces. She was an inch or two above average height. She was small-boned and slender, with dark hair pulled back, and tanned skin, and deep brown eyes. Her face was showing mostly fatigue, but there was spirit in it too, and intelligence, and a kind of detached, ironic mischief.

  Spectacular, in Reacher’s considered opinion.

  Totally worth the wait, he thought again.

  Her lawyer was on the left side of the table, a full bird colonel in Class A uniform. Grey hair and a lined face. Middle-aged and medium-sized.

  A man.

  A white man.

  Heads.

  Score three.

  Reacher moved on, all the way to the quarantine door between himself and the rear lobby. There was no inside handle. Just a buzzer button, like the conference rooms. He kicked off his boots, and then he hit the button, urgently, over and over again. Less than five seconds later the door opened. The lobby clerk stood there, the handle in his hand. His keys were on a squared-off metal screw ring, like a small piece of mountaineering equipment, secured in a belt loop.

  Reacher said, breathless, ‘Your captain is having some kind of a seizure. Or a heart attack. He’s thrashing around. You need to check him out. Right now, soldier.’

  Command presence. Much prized by the military. The guy hesitated less than a second and then stepped into the inner corridor. The door started to swing shut behind him. Reacher nudged his left boot into the gap, and then turned to follow. He ran bootless and quiet behind the guy and then overtook him and wrenched open the first cell door he came to. Unlocked and unbolted, because it was empty.

  But not for long.

  ‘In here,’ he said.

  The lobby guy shouldered in, fast and urgent, and Reacher grabbed his keys and tore them right off his pants, belt loop and all, and then he shoved him hard and sent him sprawling, and closed the door and shot the bolts.

  He breathed in, and he breathed out.

  Now came the hard part.

  NINETEEN

  REACHER PADDED BOOTLESS back to the room where Sullivan’s briefcase still rested on the table. He pushed the door all the way open and darted in and grabbed the case and then he turned back fast and caught the door again before it slammed shut behind him. He knelt on the floor in the corridor and opened the case. He ignored all the files and all the legal paperwork and rooted around until he found a car key, which he put in his pants pocket. Then he found the wallet. He took out the army ID. Sullivan’s first name was Helen. He put the ID in his shirt pocket. He took out her money and put it in his other pants pocket. He found a pen and tore off a small triangle of paper from a Xeroxed form and he wrote Dear Helen, IOU $30, and he signed it Jack Reacher. He put the slip of paper in the money slot, and he closed the wallet, and he closed the briefcase.

  Then he stood up, with the briefcase in his hand.

  He breathed in, and breathed out.

  Showtime.

  He moved on, twelve feet, to the next room, and he glanced in through the narrow window. Susan Turner was talking, patiently, marshalling arguments, using her hands, separating one point from another. Her lawyer was listening, head cocked, writing notes on a yellow legal pad. His briefcase was open on the table, pushed to the side. It was emptier than Sullivan’s, but the guy’s pockets were fuller. His uniform was not well tailored. It was baggy and generous. The nameplate on the pocket flap said Temple.

  Reacher moved on again, all the way to the quarantine door between him and the lobby. He replaced his left boot with Sullivan’s car key, so the door stayed unlatched, and he put his boots back on, slack and laceless. Then he headed back to Turner’s interview room, and stopped outside the door.

  He breathed in, and he breathed out.

  Then he opened the door, fast and easy, and stepped inside the room. He turned and bent and placed Sullivan’s briefcase against the jamb, to stop the door from closing again. He turned back, and saw both Turner and her lawyer looking up at him, nothing much in the lawyer’s face, but what looked like dawning recognition in Turner’s.

  He said, ‘Colonel, I need to see your ID.’

  The guy said, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Defense Intelligence Agency. Purely routine, sir.’

  Command presence. Much prized by the military. The guy stalled a second, and then he fished in an inside pocket and came out with his ID. Reacher stepped over and took it from him and looked hard at it. John James Temple. He raised his eyebrows, as if surprised, and he looked again, and then he slipped the ID into his shirt pocket, right next to Sullivan’s.

  He said, ‘I’m sorry, colonel, but I need a minute of your time.’

  He stepped back to the door and held it open. After you. The guy looked uncertain for a moment, and then he got up from the table, slowly. Reacher glanced over his shoulder at Turner and said, ‘You wait here, miss. We’ll be right back.’

  The lawyer paused a beat and then shuffled out ahead of him. Reacher said, ‘Sir, to your right, please,’ and followed after him, also shuffling, literally, because of the loose boots. Which were the weak points. Lawyers weren’t necessarily the most physically observant of people, but they had brains and they were generally logical. And this phase of the plan was a low-speed proposition. No urgency. No rush. No panic. Practically slow-motion. This guy had time to think.

  Which, evidently, he used.

  About twenty feet short of the first vacant cell the guy stopped suddenly and turned around and looked down. Straight at Reacher’s boots. Instantly Reacher spun him face-front again and put him in the kind of arresting-a-senior-officer grip that any MP learns e
arly in his career, about which there was nothing in the field manual, and which was not taught in any way except by hints and example. Reacher grabbed the guy’s right elbow from behind, in his left hand, and simultaneously squeezed it hard and pulled it downward and propelled it forward. As always the guy was left fighting the downward force so hard he forgot all about resisting the forward motion. He just stumbled onward, crabwise, twisted and bent, gasping a little, not really from pain, but from outraged dignity. Which Reacher was happy about. He didn’t want to hurt the guy. This was not his fault.

  Reacher manoeuvred the guy to an open and empty cell, which he guessed might have been Turner’s, from the look of it, and pushed him inside, and closed the door on him, and bolted it.

  Then he stood in the corridor, just a beat, and he breathed in, and he breathed out.

  Good to go.

  He shuffled back to the second conference room and stepped inside. Susan Turner was on her feet, between the table and the door. He held out his hand. He said, ‘I’m Jack Reacher.’

  ‘I know you are,’ she said. ‘I saw your photo. From your file. And I recognized your voice. From the phone.’

  And he recognized hers. From the phone. Warm, slightly husky, a little breathy, a little intimate. Just as good as he remembered. Maybe even better, live and in person.

  He said, ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’

  She shook his hand. Her touch was warm, not hard, not soft. She said, ‘I’m very pleased to meet you too. But what exactly are you doing?’

  He said, ‘You know what I’m doing. And why. At least, I hope you do. Because if you don’t, you’re not worth doing it for.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to get involved.’

  ‘Hence the thing about not visiting?’

  ‘I thought you might show up. Just possibly. If you did, I wanted you to turn tail and get the hell out, immediately. For your own sake.’