by Lee Child
Plato was proud of his analytical abilities.
He was thinking about Russians because he had received an intriguing proposal from one of them, an hour ago by telephone. It was the usual kind of thing. A cousin of a friend of a brother-in-law wanted a bulk quantity of a certain substance, and could Plato help the man? Naturally Plato’s first priority was to help Plato, so he had viewed the proposal through that lens, and he had arrived at an interesting conclusion, which might, with a little honing and salesmanship, be turned into an advantageous deal. Dramatically advantageous, in fact, and completely one-sided in his own favour, of course, but then, he was Plato, and the unnamed Russian cousin wasn’t.
There were three main factors.
First, the deal would require a fundamental shift in the Russian’s initial baseline assumption, in that the bulk quantity would not be transported to the Russian, but the Russian would be transported to the bulk quantity.
Second, the deal would require complete faith on Plato’s part in the notion that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush.
And third, the deal would change things a little, up in South Dakota. Therefore the situation up there had to remain pristine, and viable, and immaculate, and perfectly attractive. Perfectly marketable, in other words. Which meant the witness and the lawyer had to be dealt with sooner rather than later.
Plato reached for his phone.
At fourteen minutes past seven the old farmhouse was still quiet. At fifteen minutes past, it burst into life. Reacher heard the thin beep and wail of alarm clocks through walls and ceilings, and then the stumbling tread of footsteps on the second floor. Four sets. Parents, and two children. Two boys, Reacher figured, judging by the uninhibited clumsiness of their progress. Doors opened and closed, toilets flushed, showers ran. Ten minutes later there was noise in the kitchen. The gulp and hiss of a coffee machine, the padded slam of the refrigerator door, the scrape of chair legs on floorboards. Again, Reacher wondered about applicable protocol. Should he just come out and join the family at breakfast? Or would that scare the children? He supposed it would depend on their ages and their constitutions. Should he wait to be invited? Or should he wait until the children had left for school? Would they be going to school at all, with a foot of new snow on the ground?
He showered fast and dressed in the tiny bathroom and made the bed and sat on it. A minute later he heard the scrape of a chair and small fast feet on the boards and an inexpert knock on his door. It opened immediately and a boy stuck his head inside. The kid was maybe seven years old. He was a miniature version of Andrew Peterson. His face was equal parts resentment at being sent to do a chore, and apprehension for what he might find, and open curiosity about what he had actually found.
He stared for a second and said, ‘Mama says come get a cup of coffee.’
Then he disappeared.
By the time Reacher got through the door both children had left the kitchen. He could hear them running up the stairs. He imagined he could see disturbances in the air behind them, dust and vortexes, like a cartoon. Their parents were sitting quietly at the table. They were dressed the same as the day before, Peterson in uniform, his wife in sweater and pants. They weren’t talking. Any kind of conversation would have been drowned out by running feet above. Reacher took coffee from the pot and by the time he was back at the table Peterson had gotten up and was on his way out to the barn to start the pick-up to plough his way out to the street. His wife was on her way upstairs to make sure the children were ready. A minute later both boys ran down the stairs and crashed out through the door. Reacher heard the rattle of a heavy diesel engine and saw a glimpse of yellow through the snow. The school bus, apparently right on schedule, undeterred by the weather.
A minute after that, the house was completely silent. Kim didn’t come back to the kitchen. Reacher got nothing to eat. No big deal. He was used to being hungry. He sat alone until Peterson stuck his head in the hallway and called for him. He took the borrowed Highway Patrol coat from the hook and headed out.
Five to eight in the morning.
Forty-four hours to go.
The lawyer was wrestling with his garage door again. There was a new foot of snow out on the driveway and it had drifted a little against the door, jamming it in its tracks. He had his overshoes on, and his shovel in his hand. The motor on the garage ceiling was straining. He grabbed the inside handle and jerked upward. The mechanism’s chains bucked and bounced and the door came up in a rush and the peak of the snowdrift outside fell inward. He shovelled it back out and then started his car and got ready to face his day.
His day began with breakfast. He had taken to eating it out. In some ways, normal small-town behaviour. A coffee shop, some banter, some networking, some connections. All valuable. But not worth more than a half-hour’s investment. Forty-five minutes at the most. Now he was spending at least an hour in his booth. Sometimes, an hour and a half.
He was afraid to go to work.
The message forms his firm used were yellow. Every morning his secretary handed him a wad. Most were innocent. But some said Client requests conference re case # 517713. There was no case with that number. No file. Nothing written down. Such a note was a code. An instruction, really, to head up to the prison and take mental dictation.
Most days he got no such note. Some days he did. There was no way of predicting it. It was a part of his morning ritual now, to stand in front of his secretary’s desk, with his hand out and his heart in his mouth, waiting to see what his life would do to him next.
Reacher saw nothing on the ride downtown except snow. Snow on the ground, snow in the air. Snow everywhere. The world was slow and silent and shrunken. Traffic was light and was huddled together in narrow rutted lanes in the middle of roads. Small waffles of snow pelted up off tyres in cautious rooster tails. Small convoys joined up and crept along like slow trains, doing twenty miles an hour, or less. But Peterson’s cruiser was warm and safe and solid. A heavy car on flat land, with chains on the back and winter tyres on the front. No problem.
By day through the snow the police station looked longer and lower than it had by night. It was a sprawling one-storey building built of white brick. It had a flat roof with microwave dishes and radio antennas bolted to steel superstructures. It reminded Reacher of a classic State Police barracks. Maybe it had been built from a standardized blueprint. There were plenty of squad cars in the lot, still warm, just parked. Day watch personnel, presumably, coming in from home for briefing ahead of their eight-thirty start. There was a small front-loader working between the cars, bustling around on rubber caterpillar tracks, shovelling snow into a pile that was already eight feet high. Peterson seemed relaxed. Reacher figured he was feeling good about the snow. It limited fast access to anywhere, including Janet Salter’s house. Intruders would wait for a better day. Stealthy approaches were hard to make through thigh-high drifts.
Reacher took the parka but left the gloves and the hat in the car. Too personal. He would replace them with items of his own. Inside the lobby there was a different old guy on the stool behind the counter. The day watch aide. Same kind of age as the guy the night before, same kind of civilian clothing, but a different individual. Peterson led Reacher right past him and down a corridor into a large open-plan squad room. It was full of noise and talk and men and women in uniform. They had go-cups of coffee, they were making notes, they were reading bulletins, they were getting ready to head out. There were close to thirty of them. A sixty-strong department, split equally between day and night duty. Some were young, some were old, some were neat, some were a mess. A real mixed bag. We doubled in size, Peterson had said. It was hard to keep standards up. Reacher saw the proof right there in front of him. It was easy enough to pick out the new hires from the old hands, and easy to see the friction between them. Unit cohesion had been disrupted, and professionalism had been compromised. Us and them. Reacher saw Chief Holland’s problem. He was dealing with two departments in one. And he didn’t have the ene
rgy for it. He should have retired. Or the mayor should have canned him, before the ink was dry on the prison deal.
But new or old, all the cops were punctual. By eight thirty the room was almost completely deserted. Clearly the roadblocks were eating manpower, and presumably snow days brought fender benders by the dozen. Only two cops stayed behind. Both were in uniform. One had a name badge that said Kapler. The other had a name badge that said Lowell. Neither one was wearing a belt. No guns, no radios, no cuffs. Both were somewhere in their mid-thirties. Kapler was dark, with the remnant of a fading tan. Lowell was fair and red-faced, like a local boy. Both looked fit and strong and active. Neither looked happy. Kapler went clockwise and Lowell went counterclockwise and they emptied out-trays all around the room and carried the resulting piles of paper away through a blank door further down the corridor.
Reacher asked, ‘What’s that all about?’
Peterson said, ‘Normal clerical duties.’
‘While you’re hurting for manpower? I don’t think so.’
‘So what’s your guess?’
‘Disciplinary. They did something wrong and they’ve been grounded. Holland took their guns away.’
‘I can’t talk about it.’
‘Are they new or old?’
‘Lowell has been here a spell. He’s local. An old Bolton family. Kapler’s new, but not too new. He came up from Florida two years ago.’
‘Why? For the weather? I thought that worked the other way around.’
‘He needed a job.’
‘Because? What went wrong for him down there?’
‘Why should something have gone wrong?’
‘Because with the greatest possible respect, if you’re in Florida law enforcement, South Dakota is the kind of place you go when you run out of alternatives.’
‘I don’t know the details. He was hired by Chief Holland and the mayor.’
‘So what did Lowell do to deserve him as a partner?’
‘Lowell’s an odd duck,’ Peterson said. ‘He’s a loner. He reads books.’
‘What did they do to get themselves grounded?’
‘I can’t talk about it. And you’ve got work to do. Pick any desk you like.’
Reacher picked a desk way in the back corner. An old habit. It was a plain laminate thing, and the chair was adjusted for a small person. It was still warm. There was a keyboard and a screen on the desk, and a console telephone. The screen was blank. Switched off. The phone had buttons for six lines and ten speed dials.
Peterson said, ‘Dial nine for a line.’
I’m guessing there’s a number you remember, too. Maybe not for a switchboard.
Reacher dialled. Nine for a line, then a Virginia area code, then seven more digits. A number he remembered.
He got a recording, which was not what he remembered.
The recording featured a man’s voice, speaking slowly and ponderously, with undue emphasis on his first three words. His message said, ‘You have reached the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. Otherwise, please choose from the following menu.’ Then came a long droning list, press one for this, press two for that, three for the other thing, agriculture, manufacturing, non-food service industries.
Reacher hung up.
‘You know another number?’ Peterson said.
‘No.’
‘Who were you calling?’
‘A special unit. An investigative department. Kind of elite. Like the army’s own FBI, but much smaller.’
‘Who did you get instead?’
‘Some government office. Something about labour statistics.’
‘I guess things change.’
‘I guess they do,’ Reacher said.
Then he said, ‘Or maybe they don’t. At least, not fundamentally.’
He dialled again. The same number. He got the same recording. If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. He dialled 110. Heard a click and a purr and a new dial tone. A new voice, live, after just one ring.
It said, ‘Yes?’ A Southern accent, a man, probably late twenties, almost certainly a captain, unless the world had gone mad and they were letting lieutenants or NCOs answer that particular phone now, or, worse still, civilians.
Reacher said, ‘I need to speak to your commanding officer.’
‘Whose commanding officer?’
‘Yours.’
‘Who exactly do you think you’re speaking with?’
‘You’re the 110th MP HQ in Rock Creek, Virginia.’
‘Are we?’
‘Unless you changed your phone number. There used to be a live operator. You had to ask for room 110.’
‘Who exactly am I speaking to?’
‘I used to work for the 110th.’
‘In what capacity?’
‘I was its first CO.’
‘Name?’
‘Reacher.’
Silence for a moment.
Reacher asked, ‘Does anyone go ahead and actually choose from that menu?’
‘Sir, if you worked for the 110th, you’ll know that this is an active and open emergency channel. I’ll have to ask you to state your business immediately.’
‘I want to talk to your commanding officer.’
‘Concerning?’
‘A favour I need. Tell him to look me up in the files and call me back.’ Reacher read out the number from a label stuck to the console in front of him.
The guy on the other end hung up without a word.
Five to nine in the morning.
Forty-three hours to go.
ELEVEN
AT NINE THIRTY THE PHONE ON REACHER’S BORROWED DESK rang, but the call was not for him. He stretched the cord and passed the handset to Peterson. Peterson gave his name and rank and then listened for the best part of a minute. He asked whoever it was on the other end to stay in touch, and then he passed the handset back. Reacher hung it up. Peterson said, ‘We need your information just as soon as you can get it.’
Reacher pointed at the console in front of him. ‘You know how it is with kids today. They never write, they never call.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘What changed?’
‘That was the DEA on the line. The actual Drug Enforcement Administration. The actual federal bureau. From Washington D.C. A courtesy call. Turns out they have a wiretap on a guy they think is a Russian dope dealer. New to the scene, trying to make a name, trawling for deals, out of Brooklyn, New York. A guy in Mexico called Plato just called him about a property for sale five miles west of a town called Bolton, in South Dakota.’
‘A property for sale?’
‘Those were the words they used.’
‘So what is this? Real estate or dope dealing?’
‘If there’s an underground lab out there, then it’s both, isn’t it? And that’s going to be the DEA’s next question. It’s a nobrainer. They’ll be building their file and they’ll call us to ask what exactly that place is.’
‘Tell them to call the Department of the Army direct. Quicker all around.’
‘But that would make us look like idiots. We can’t admit we’ve had a place next to us for fifty years and we don’t even know what it is.’
Reacher shrugged. Pointed at the phone again. ‘You’ll know as soon as I do. Which might be never.’
‘You were their commanding officer? An elite unit?’
Reacher nodded. ‘For a spell.’ Then he said: ‘Plato is a weird name for a Mexican, don’t you think? Sounds more like a Brazilian name to me.’
‘No, Yugoslavian,’ Peterson said. ‘Like that old dictator.’
‘That was Tito.’
‘I thought he was a South African bishop.’
‘That was Tutu.’
‘So who was Plato?’
‘An ancient Greek philosopher. The pupil of Socrates, the teacher of Aristotle.’
‘So what has Brazil got to do with all of that?’
‘Don�
�t ask,’ Reacher said.
Kapler and Lowell came back to the squad room. They distributed memos still hot and curled from the photocopier, one into every in-tray, and then they slouched out again. Peterson said, ‘That’s their day’s work done, right there. Now comes a five-hour lunch break, probably. What a waste.’
‘What did they do?’
‘I can’t talk about it.’
‘That bad?’
‘No, not really.’
‘So what was it?’
‘I can’t talk about it.’
‘Yes you can.’
‘OK, three days ago they were out of radio contact for an hour. Wouldn’t say why or how or what they were doing. We can’t allow that. Because of the prison plan.’
The phone rang again at twenty minutes to ten. Reacher picked it up and said, ‘Yes?’
A woman’s voice asked, ‘Major Reacher?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Keep talking.’
‘You taught a class in your last year in the service.’
‘Did I?’
‘About integrating military and federal investigations. I took the class. Don’t you recognize my voice?’
‘Keep talking.’
‘What do you want me to say?’ Right then Reacher wanted her to say plenty, because she had a great voice. It was warm, slightly husky, a little breathy, a little intimate. He liked the way it whispered in his ear. He liked it a lot. In his mind he pictured its owner as blonde, not more than thirty-five years old, not less than thirty. Probably tall, probably a looker. Altogether a terrific voice, for sure.