The Man Who Strikes Fear

by Dan Ames

  Tallon set the wallets and two of the phones on his tray, and then carried it all over to a giant wastebasket and slid everything into the garbage, where it would no doubt soon be smothered in leftover gravy and soggy French fries.

  He returned to his booth and accepted a refill on coffee.

  Tallon glanced outside at the motor home. Still no activity.

  He considered his options, and what his location meant. On the way into the truck stop, he’d spotted a giant road map behind Plexiglas with the “you are here” arrow, no doubt installed years ago before everyone had smartphones with electronic maps installed.

  Tallon had stopped and looked at the map, registering mild surprise.

  Now, he looked at the single burner phone he hadn’t dumped into the trash and opened it up. He tapped out a text message to Pauling.

  “It’s Tallon. Right now I’m sitting in a truck stop near Margrave, Georgia,” he wrote. “Where are you?”

  41

  Bravo cruised past the truck stop where he saw the motor home parked but continued driving down the road.

  He already knew his men were dead. He’d watched from a distance as Tallon had emerged from the motor home alone.

  Bravo hadn’t been surprised at all. Because it was part of the plan.

  It had effectively eliminated the rest of the team, so it was just Bravo and his partner, plus, it drew Tallon into the case. A chip they could play later when they needed it.

  He took the on ramp to the freeway and gunned his way into the fast lane. He wouldn’t go too far over the speed limit as he had no need to interact with a cop at the moment, but he also wasn’t going to drive leisurely.

  The flat Georgia land held no interest for him, and he pressed onward. Bravo was pleased Tallon had eliminated the crew, and saved him doing the job himself. Plus, the Feds would no doubt be able to tie evidence to the crime scenes in New York and Atlanta, temporarily satisfying them and keeping their focus here, right where they wanted it.

  Bravo knew they were getting very close to the end, and that the finish line was finally in sight.

  It was only a matter of time before he got what he’d been waiting for all those years, what he so rightly deserved.

  He nudged the 4x4’s speed up a little higher. He was getting excited and his reservoir of patience was starting to run dry.

  He sped past Margrave, toward Atlanta and the airport.

  42

  Steele was exceptionally frustrated.

  He’d talked to the chief of police and found out that a woman matching Pauling’s description had been there ahead of him.

  It pissed him off for several reasons. One, the stupid local cop had nothing to offer. No news of anything happening. He offered no insight on the crimes or on the past counterfeiting case. Plus, Steele sensed the police chief had an attitude.

  Lastly, Steele felt that Pauling was once again one step ahead of him. It reminded him of when they’d worked together at the Bureau, as competitors. At that time, Pauling always seemed to gain the upper hand. She was smoother, smarter, and in some cases, more aggressive.

  She’d put Steele in his place many times. So much so that he had often reverted to tactics that hit below the belt. At the time, he was desperate. His career was everything and he figured that the ends justified the means. Now, many years later, he realized that he had crossed the line with Pauling. He’d actively sabotaged a couple of her investigations and when he could, assigned her blame she didn’t deserve and diverted credit that she had earned away from her.

  Steele shook his head, chastising himself. This wasn’t about Pauling. This was about Giles. And now Henry Lee. He’d studied the cases Wyman had sent him and knew they had to find the link that tied it all together. It was up to him to do it.

  He’d decided to check into the only hotel in Margrave in order to study the files and set up a game plan. Now, he realized the answer was going to be back in Atlanta, or that he would need to return to New York and put a full-court press on the team.

  This was his case, and he was determined to win.

  There was a knock on the door and he approached to look through the keyhole. It was probably going to be the local Atlanta FBI agent, wanting to see if he’d had dinner. Or maybe grab some drinks before they returned to the city.

  Steele’s hand went to the pistol on his hip, just in case. The images of Giles and his wife nailed to their living room wall were still very fresh in his mind.

  Steele recognized the face peering back at him from the hallway and tried to hide the shock.

  He opened the door and stepped aside.

  “What are you doing down here?” he asked.

  His visitor raised a pistol and shot Steele in the face.

  43

  Pauling gasped when she read the text message on her phone. She quickly paid her bill, fired up her rented BMW and drove to where Tallon said he was waiting. It was a truck stop less than a mile from Eno’s Diner.

  She pulled into the parking lot of the truck stop and watched Tallon lope out of the restaurant and climb into her BMW. He had a big grin on his face.

  “Hey, nice rental,” he said as they quickly kissed. Pauling gunned the car out of the parking lot.

  “Okay, I want you to start from the beginning,” she said, still unable to grasp that Michael Tallon had somehow ended up in little Margrave, Georgia, at the same time she had. Pauling wasn’t a big believer in coincidences and had already begun to suspect that someone had orchestrated the meeting.

  Tallon walked her through the story, including his abduction at the military airport, and the three men he’d killed in the motor home.

  “And yes,” he said. “I destroyed any evidence of my presence in that motor home.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Pauling replied. “The cops will find traces of stuff linking them to the murder of Giles and Henry Lee, no doubt.”

  He looked at her and she realized it was her turn to fill him in.

  “Okay, now you,” Tallon said.

  Pauling went over the details starting from after Giles’ murder and her subsequent discoveries.

  Tallon followed along. “Do you get the sense someone is trying to steer the investigation a certain way?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “The ‘For Reacher’ message was clearly designed to either explain what they were doing, or to send the Bureau in an obvious direction. And obviously, you being grabbed and driven here was another blatant move. They want us working together for some reason.”

  “Yeah, but who? And what are we looking for?”

  “I’m looking for the person responsible for murdering the Gileses.”

  “And you think Paul Hubble might have the answer?”

  “Or he might be the answer.”

  Tallon put on his seat belt as Pauling gunned the BMW onto the freeway. Very quickly they were doing well over ninety miles per hour, heading north.

  “Are we going to the airport?” Tallon asked. “Catching a flight to Montana?”

  “Damn right we are,” Pauling answered.

  44

  Paul Hubble, now called John McCartney by his friends and neighbors, heard the doorbell ring.

  Years earlier, he used to panic when someone showed up at his home unannounced. In his imagination, it was always one of the Kliner men, with a nail gun and plastic boots, ready to nail him to the wall, along with his family. They would cut off his genitals and do unimaginable things to his wife and daughters.

  Over the years, though, that fear had passed.

  Thanks mainly to repetition. As visitors came and went, Hubble gradually began to realize that the Kliners were gone, and no one but mail deliveries, neighbors and his daughters’ friends would be showing up at his door.

  So now, as he made his way to the front door, he figured maybe his wife had ordered something from Amazon again. Maybe that new blender she had shown him on her laptop.

  It was a long walk to the front door because it was a big house. On t
he outskirts of Billings, it was a six-bedroom, five thousand square foot home with a gourmet kitchen, a swimming pool and a four-car garage. In that garage was one of Hubble’s most prized possessions; a Rolls-Royce Phantom. He’d upgraded from the old Bentley he used to drive.

  Hubble opened the door and saw a man standing before him. Hubble didn’t recognize him. He was an older gentleman, well-dressed in a suit, with neatly trimmed silver hair.

  Behind him, a younger man stood, peering intently at Hubble.

  The young man looked vaguely familiar to Hubble.

  He had the kind of face that–

  “Oh no,” he said.

  A Kliner.

  The man in front produced a pistol from inside his suit coat. He smiled, revealing perfect teeth.

  “It took me a long time to find you, Paul,” he said. His voice was soft, his diction cultured and precise.

  Hubble backed up and the Kliner kid shut the door behind him.

  “Who are you?” Hubble asked.

  “Call your family, Paul,” the man said.

  Hubble hesitated and the man continued. “Paul, let me be very clear. One way or the other, you’re going to tell me where the money is.”

  Hubble heard his youngest daughter come into the kitchen from the back door.

  The man’s gaze never left Hubble’s face. “The only thing that isn’t certain is how many of your kids I’ll have to kill first.”

  45

  The rental car agency at the airport in Billings, Montana, didn’t have a BMW, but it did have a Ford Mustang. Pauling rented it and opened it up on the freeway to the point where Tallon was worried they’d get arrested before they could get to the address Wyman had given Pauling that they all hoped would turn out to be Paul Hubble’s residence, as provided by the witness protection program.

  It took them thirty minutes to find the house in a prestigious neighborhood full of big homes spread out on multiple-acre lots. The land was quite different from Georgia’s – big sweeping valley and rolling hills.

  Pauling pulled up in front of the house and glanced at her phone.

  “Just got a message from Wyman. Steele isn’t answering his phone. No one’s heard from him and they can’t get in touch.”

  Tallon was looking at a big black SUV parked in the driveway.

  “That’s not Hubble’s style,” he said. “Didn’t you say he used to drive a Bentley?”

  “Maybe that’s part of his new identity,” Pauling replied.

  “Yeah, but people can’t change their personality. I highly doubt he’s driving that. So either his handler is telling him to drive that thing or–”

  “Or someone beat us here,” Pauling said, finishing his thought.

  Tallon retrieved the hard-sided case he’d used to check the two pistols he’d taken from the dead men on the motor home. He loaded both and handed one to Pauling.

  “I think Hubble has company.”

  46

  “It’s in a storage unit at the edge of town. I’ll take you there,” Hubble said. He was crying. His wife and daughters were assembled behind him.

  “Of course,” the older man said. “Bring the key and we’ll take her as insurance.”

  The man pointed at Hubble’s youngest daughter. A girl of twelve with blonde hair and blue eyes.

  “No, take me,” Hubble’s wife said.

  The man raised his gun at the girl.

  “I can kill her now if you’d like.”

  “No!” Hubble said. “Let’s go. I’ll take you there, no problem.”

  The Kliner kid stepped forward.

  “Yes, you will,” he said. He clubbed Hubble with the butt of his gun and Hubble sank to the floor. The young girls shrieked and Hubble’s wife covered her mouth with her hands.

  Kliner kicked Hubble in the ribs.

  “Get up, you piece of shit,” he said. “I’ll teach you not to rob from my family.”

  The older man put his hand on Kliner’s shoulder.

  “Plenty of time for that later,” he said. “Let’s get what we came for first.”

  47

  Pauling was nearly frozen.

  She and Tallon had circled behind the house, and entered through the kitchen door.

  Pauling had risked a look around the corner of the doorway leading into the kitchen and saw something she couldn’t believe.

  The Director of the New York FBI Office, William Tisdale, was pointing a gun at a very young girl.

  Pauling ducked back from the doorway and looked at Tallon. She was shaken to the core. Tisdale? He’d ordered the murder of one of his own agents? And led everyone on a chase to find Paul Hubble?

  It didn’t make sense.

  “What’s wrong?” Tallon whispered in her ear.

  “Nothing.”

  They heard a smack and then a body hitting the floor, followed by the screams of Hubble’s kids.

  Pauling decided she couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  She and Tallon stepped out from the kitchen, separating themselves quickly to present a wider target area.

  “Drop the gun, Tisdale,” Pauling said. “It’s over. I’ve been in touch with Wyman and everyone knows you’re behind this.”

  No one moved.

  On the floor, a chubby man wearing an expensive, gold Rolex looked at her. She recognized him.

  Paul Hubble.

  The man standing over Hubble was tall and lanky, but his face bore faint similarities to the mug shots of the Kliner family behind the counterfeiting scheme.

  Pauling knew Tallon was focused on the Kliner kid because he was directly opposite him, and her responsibility was Tisdale.

  “Pauling,” Tisdale said. His eyes shifted rapidly back and forth. “You always were very bright,” he said.

  “Why?” Pauling asked.

  “Do you really think I’m the type to discuss my motivation?” he asked. “Really, Pauling, you disappoint–”

  Hubble groaned and the Kliner kid moved.

  He started to raise his pistol, which he’d used to club Hubble, but shifting his grip caused the slightest delay and it was all the time Tallon needed.

  He fired twice. The shots were so fast they nearly blended into one sound. The bullets tore into Kliner’s chest, over his heart and his arm stopped halfway up. He staggered backward and fell, his head cracking on the tile floor, his gun skittering across the room before banging into the wooden base molding.

  Tisdale hadn’t moved.

  Pauling hadn’t either, and now Tallon’s pistol, along with hers, were both pointing directly at Tisdale.

  “Put down the gun,” Pauling said to Tisdale. “You are out of options.”

  The head of the FBI’s New York office smiled and gave a soft laugh.

  “Not quite,” he said. He put the muzzle of his pistol into the soft flesh below his chin and fired upward. Blood and brains splattered onto the beveled glass sidelights of the house’s front door.

  Tisdale dropped to the floor amid screams and cries from Hubble’s family.

  Paul Hubble looked at the dead Kliner kid, and then the lifeless form of Tisdale before turning back to Pauling and Tallon.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Who the hell are you guys?”

  Epilogue

  “You two are so cute together,” Wyman said.

  Tallon had grilled some filet mignon and they were now working on their second bottle of cabernet. Pauling’s apartment smelled like a gourmet restaurant and she was happy to be entertaining. She and Tallon had invited Wyman over for dinner to discuss the fallout from what the Bureau was now calling the Tisdale Disaster.

  Pauling laughed at Wyman’s comment and she put a hand on Tallon’s shoulder. She didn’t know if they were cute together, but everything with Tallon just felt right.

  “The whole thing was designed to smoke out Paul Hubble’s true identity,” Wyman said.

  “Unbelievable,” Tallon said. “Tisdale was head of the New York Bureau and he cou
ldn’t ferret that out?”

  Wyman shook her head. “No, and believe me, he tried. But Hubble’s new identity was set up by Treasury, and Tisdale couldn’t get the information. Some people think he was pissed off that Giles, who’d been the liaison on that case, couldn’t find out, either.”

  “Yeah, witness protection is a whole different ballgame,” Pauling said. “A completely separate unit, highly secretive.”

  “Our internal affairs team dug into Tisdale’s affairs and found he was broke. His wife had left him and he was trying to get enough money to try to win her back. That whole uber-composed personality he put on display? It was all a very good act, because inside he was crazed and panicked.”

  “So he killed Giles and planted the Reacher clue,” Tallon said. “Knowing it would eventually lead back to Margrave, Georgia, and the counterfeiting scheme. Which would then give him a reason to try to blow the whole case back out into the open.”

  “And eventually, Paul Hubble’s true identity would come out,” Pauling said. “That was the plan. And somehow, he found out my history with Reacher so he made sure to get me involved, and you,” she said to Tallon. “I think you were insurance that if I didn’t go along and do my job as investigator well enough, he could use you as bait. Or maybe a threat.”

  “But how did he know that not all the money had been destroyed?” Tallon asked.

  “Basic math,” Wyman replied. “He’d read the reports and sure enough, the Venezuelan arm of the Kliner’s operation had sent over $700 million to the Kliners in Georgia, but only $590 million had been checked into the Kliner’s warehouse. Which meant that $110 million was floating around somewhere, and Tisdale guessed accurately that Hubble, the currency guy in the operation, had somehow stashed it and was dipping into it when he needed. Unbeknownst to his witness protection handlers.”