by Dan Ames
Now, she sat in her rental car with her laptop, poring over the information she’d gotten from the FBI’s database. Not the one that had spat out Michael Tallon’s name. That had arrived relatively surreptitiously.
The other file was one she’d gotten from the back door of her former access portal.
Pauling studied the old Borken file.
It had been a doozy of a case. An agent, kidnapped, housed in a building full of explosives. Two double agents. A charismatic militia leader.
And Jack Reacher.
Pauling considered the implications. Was Operation Reacher a case of revenge? Someone pissed off at the Bureau for getting its leader killed?
Or was it a former acolyte, carrying on the great thinker’s philosophy?
Or was it none of the above? Maybe a smokescreen to throw off the actual agenda.
Pauling hung on the word.
Smokescreen.
She thought back to how she’d first learned of Operation Reacher.
Gina Brody.
Logan and Gina Brody.
Maybe not a smokescreen.
Maybe not a couple on the verge of divorce, murder and mayhem.
But instead, a surveillance team. Checking to see if Pauling knew anything about Operation Reacher. Or, to try to learn if Michael Tallon had contacted her.
Worse yet, maybe they had planted the thought in her mind, in order to lead them here. To Michael Tallon.
Had they killed this young woman?
Pauling snapped her laptop closed.
Too many questions. Not enough answers.
And no sign of Jack Reacher.
Just another day in the life of Lauren Pauling, she thought.
She was about to put her car into gear and go to her hotel when a thought hit her. Logan and Gina Brody, those certainly weren’t their real names, had been fairly decent actors. Good enough that despite her reservations, Pauling had heard them out.
But they didn’t seem like thinkers.
In other words, she would almost have bet that they were under orders to contact Pauling, float out the information and then study the reaction. It was almost classic FBI maneuvering. If they were Feds, they certainly weren’t running the show.
The more she thought about it, the more she liked the angle. Because a jealous husband and a cheating wife wouldn’t have the resources to break into Pauling’s condo.
But the Bureau certainly would.
All of which meant that if Pauling could figure out exactly who Logan and Gina Brody were working for, she’d find out who killed Monica.
And who had instigated Operation Reacher.
36
My oh my, that was fun, Kate thought.
Watching, hearing and smelling that young woman dying before her very eyes was so pleasurable. It had evolved into a level of sexual pleasure and she nearly climaxed several times during the torturing.
If that bastard Michael Tallon hadn’t killed her William, he would be bringing her to the finish line right now.
Instead, Kate was back in her quaint little bed-and-breakfast, just a few miles north of Whitman Beach.
Her room included a bathroom and she now studied her face in the mirror. She looked like a middle-aged shopkeeper or a tired, desperate housewife trying and failing to find a retailer for her homemade soaps.
It was what had gotten the woman to open the door for her. A claim of a car broken down and a need to use a phone. How dangerous could this old, chubby lady be? It hadn’t worked with Tallon, but it sure had with Monica.
It had turned out to be a real learning experience for the young woman. A lesson about opening the door to strangers.
Proof that you could never trust anyone. How disappointing for a person to have that be the second-to-last experience of life.
Followed by a brutal death.
Call it her Final Realization.
Kate smiled.
It had just been a warm-up, though.
Like an itch that had been scratched, but would quickly start itching again.
And the only thing that would qualify as salve? The death of Michael Tallon.
Kate rubbed her hands together.
They were serving a group dinner downstairs, but she was going to skip it. No sense in having to interact with others. Besides, she was in need of some sleep.
She had a lot of work to do the next day.
37
Tallon emerged from the police department and saw Pauling waiting for him.
“This makes it all worth it,” he said, as he opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. He was wearing jeans and a black shirt. His hair was rumpled and he looked tired.
“Who got more information, them or you?” Pauling asked.
Tallon understood what she meant. He’d done more than his share of interrogations, and was vastly more experienced than the local cops, nothing against them. They actually seemed fairly competent and eager to find out who actually killed a member of their community.
“About even,” he replied. They had also asked about a certain two men who’d gotten knocked out at the bar down the street. Tallon had claimed ignorance on that one.
Pauling drove them both back to the Wayfarer Inn.
“Do you want to call it a night?” Pauling asked. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer.”
“No, there’s something we need to check out,” Tallon said. “Why don’t you stash your bags and meet me back down here when you’re ready.”
Pauling did just that, and when she returned, Tallon told her the name of the place they were going to visit.
“To The Gills? That’s the name of the bar?” she asked as Tallon drove toward the hangout where he’d asked about Fackrell and met Monica.
“Sure is,” he said. “It’s a city ordinance. The name of your business has to do with the sea, fish or shells.”
They parked on a side street facing the back of the bar. It was late and there were only a few vehicles, but Tallon knew the bartender would be the last to leave. He clearly owned the place, and was in charge.
Tallon thought back to when he’d gotten jumped. The two toughs who’d arrived to threaten him had been summoned by the cigar-smoking bartender. It had been obvious. When they’d first come into the bar, they’d immediately shot a look to the shaggy guy behind the bar with the cigar in his mouth. A confirmation had passed between the two parties.
To Tallon, that meant pretty clearly that the bartender was part of the organization that was somehow involved with Carl Fackrell.
While they waited, Pauling filled him in on what she’d learned in her research and her theory about the Brodys.
“I also sent an email to Holly Johnson, she was the woman who was kidnapped by the Borken militia and rescued by Reacher. She’s still an agent. I’m waiting to hear back from her to see if she can shed any light on why someone would even be discussing a deceased head of a defunct militia.”
It was quiet in the car for a moment. They’d rolled down the windows, and the breeze from the ocean filled the vehicle with cool air, tinged with the scent of sea grass.
“I can’t stop thinking about Fackrell,” Tallon said. “The guy is involved in something that he’s initially excited about. But when he tells his girlfriend about it, he’s swung the other way and stressed about it. And then, not long after, he’s way the hell out by me, delivering a message. If he did, in fact, bail on whatever he was involved with, why? Change of heart? A falling out?”
“Maybe he was going to recruit you,” Pauling said. “Guys like Fackrell never back down from a fight. He could have been coming out to see you for advice or for help. Maybe he wanted to put a stop to whatever was going on and figured you could help.”
“And then someone killed him.”
“The two murders were a thousand miles apart, too,” Pauling said. “What’s that tell you? This isn’t a local operation. This is someone with resources. Multiple teams in multiple locations. Like I said, I don’t believe i
n coincidences, and I don’t think the fact that we’re both involved is random, either. Someone has an agenda. Someone with plenty of money and power to put this thing into place.”
“And someone who feels pretty fearless about getting caught,” Tallon added. “These murders haven’t exactly been quiet.”
Suddenly, the rear door of the bar opened. The bartender, cigar clamped into the corner of his mouth, stepped out and tossed a giant bag of trash into the dumpster ten feet away. It was a perfect, practiced shot.
He went back in and a few minutes later, all of the lights were turned out. The last vehicles left, and finally the bartender came back out, easily tracked by the glow of his cigar burning brightly in the dim light. He got into a Ford F-150 that looked like it had rolled off a Detroit assembly line in 1978 or so. The engine rumbled to life, and then the truck rolled off the lot and turned south.
Tallon followed, well back, at times turning off his headlights.
At long last, the truck pulled into a residential neighborhood consisting of long, rectangular homes. The modular kind, transported by truck.
The truck pulled to a stop, and the bartender climbed out, walked to the house and went inside. A light came on.
Tallon pulled in behind the Ford, shut the vehicle off and got out.
He went to the door and knocked.
The door opened a hair and Tallon pushed his way in.
The bartender had started to pull a gun but Tallon caught his hand, squeezed, and wrenched it from the man’s hand.
Pauling entered, too, and shut the door behind them.
The bartender laughed at Tallon.
“You’re a dead man,” he said.
38
The men in charge of the mobile unit arrived at their destination early in the morning.
The first order of business was to make sure the area stayed clear for what they were about to do. This was quite easy to accomplish thanks to their affiliation, albeit artificial, with the government. They had permits and official-looking traffic signs to block off the area.
Not that there was much traffic to deal with. The area nearby held some interest for some, but they were well back, in a stretch of no-man’s land. They couldn’t see the ocean, and they couldn’t see the inlet on the other side. It was a wide, flat grassy area, with a lone, rarely used road.
Still, it was better to take precautions than to have to deal with a stubbornly inquisitive local.
When they were in position, the communications and electronics specialist of the unit put the last navigational information into the system. It had been closely guarded, and breached only once by Carl Fackrell. Ever since then, no one had known what the final target was.
The navigation specialist, a young man from Montana who’d been specifically trained for this moment for most of his young adult life, didn’t bat an eye at the two destinations.
In fact, he felt a warm glow of anticipation when the targets appeared on his screen.
Outside, the camouflage was pulled away from the launch gear, although the star of the show was still being kept under wraps.
The young man in charge of that particular piece of hardware didn’t need to see it, anyway.
He knew exactly what it looked like and what it carried.
His favorite part, though, was the name emblazoned on the side of the craft now equipped with a pair of Hellfire missiles.
The name was perfect.
It was a tribute, written in revenge, and it bore the name of a killer. Not just any murderer, but a brazen traitor who single-handedly murdered the young man’s mentor. A man who was going to establish a new kind of society.
That dream had been cut short by a drifter whose name would now be associated with terror.
Reacher.
39
“I don’t feel like a dead man,” Tallon answered.
They stood in the bartender’s living room. Tallon and Pauling were just inside the door, the home’s owner staring back at them, with a scared defiance in his face.
“Why did you call the thugs when he started asking about Carl Fackrell?” Pauling asked. She took a look around the room. It was a long rectangular space, with a living room featuring a saggy couch and cardboard shelving barely supporting a ten-year-old television. It smelled like beer, cigar smoke, fried food and dirty laundry.
On one wall was a calendar featuring an image of four women in thong bikinis with their backs to the camera. The headline on the poster said, “Turn the other cheek.”
A giant American flag took up another wall. There was a rifle hung above the door to what Pauling assumed was a bedroom.
“Who said I did?” the bartender shot back. He was trying to be defiant, but it came out as whiny.
“It was pretty obvious,” Tallon said. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Rodney, and I’m calling the cops,” he said as he pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. Tallon swatted it away and watched as it bounced along the stained linoleum floor.
“I don’t have insurance on that thing,” Rodney complained. “Those are expensive.”
“Did you kill Monica?” Pauling asked, trying to get the interview going in the right direction.
Rodney’s jaw set in a hard line. Tears filled his eyes. “You go to hell,” he said.
Pauling was slightly surprised. She had figured this crusty old hillbilly was in a bunker mentality, unhappy with how his life turned out and looking to take his anger and frustration out on someone else.
“If you cared about her, you’ll help us,” Pauling said, exploiting the man’s weakness. “Who’s doing this? Who killed Fackrell and Monica?”
The man stared back at her. He was lean, with ropy arms thick with veins. He appeared to be at a loss for words.
Pauling pointed to a worn recliner. “Why don’t you sit down and start being honest with us? Then we can get the hell out of here and you can go to bed.”
With a sigh, Rodney sank into his chair.
Pauling and Tallon remained standing.
“If I tell you what I know, they’ll probably kill me,” he growled at her. “I can’t believe the bastards did that to Monica. She was a helluva girl.”
“Who is they?” Tallon asked. “Time for some real answers. Not bullshit.”
“Look, Carl started hanging around with a group of guys, ex-military,” Rodney said. “But not normal. You know, Carl was a big hero around here. Special Forces, all that stuff. So when he talked, people listened.”
From outside, a dog started barking and Pauling wondered if their presence had been spotted. Rodney didn’t seem to bat an eye, so she hoped it was a normal occasion.
“And then one day, he brought a guy into the bar that I knew right off the bat was somebody. You know what I mean? Not normal.”
“You keep saying ‘not normal.’ By that, do you mean not local?” Pauling asked.
“Yep,” Rodney said. “This guy had a weird vibe coming off of him. Anyway, he and Carl talked in the corner table for a long time. I was going to bring them a pitcher on the house but they waved me away before I could get in earshot.”
Rodney shook his head, then continued. “Later, one of the local guys asked Carl about the guy and all he said was there was some big stuff going on. He said something about being devil killers, and everyone knew Carl had spent a lot of time overseas killing terrorists. So, that’s what everyone thought and Carl sort of implied that we would probably hear more about it. Whether he meant from him, or from the news, or gossip, was anybody’s guess. We don’t like to ask questions around here.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Tallon said.
“What did this man look like?” Pauling asked.
“Different. Ethnic. I think he was kind of Asian.”
Tallon spoke up. “Did Carl give you a name?”
“Yeah. Really weird. Carl said his name was June.”
40
The murders would not go unnoticed.
Charles June knew that.
<
br /> The men in the wine cellar were far too important, and there was no way to completely erase evidence of a crime of that magnitude.
It didn’t matter, he didn’t need to conceal anything. By the time it was all said and done, the murders would be held up as a pivotal moment in American history. He would be a hero.
The only issue was timing.
He wanted to confuse the eventual investigators so he, along with Logan and Gina, carefully removed any evidence of their presence, and placed their cleaned weapons in the hands of the dead men. A staged shootout in a rich man’s wine cellar. Stranger things had happened in Falls Church.
It would cause all kinds of crazy theories and lead the investigators in an endless maze of dead-ends, all of which would buy him time.
June didn’t need much.
Just a day or so before his leader’s legacy could be cemented in place.
They left, and the Brodys drove, with June in the back seat.
Heading south, they would be in North Carolina in a matter of hours.
Never in his life had June felt such a surge of anticipation. Operation Reacher was about to reach its spectacular and explosive conclusion. Everything was in place–
June’s phone dinged with an incoming message. He glanced at it, read what had been sent to him and cursed softly under his breath.
Kate.
She had gone rogue, not followed his instructions, and murdered Fackrell’s girlfriend. His hand tightened around the phone. Why? He instantly knew the answer.
Kate was a complete psychopath. A true murderer who lived to kill. It was William who had kept her in check. It was why they had made such a good team.
Now that William was dead, Kate was succumbing to her thirst for killing.
She would have to be neutralized as soon as possible.
It was an unfortunate development and proof that whenever a project had a lot of moving parts, inevitably one of those parts would come loose.