“What’s the point?”
“We have to do something. You know as well as I do there’s not going to be any cute little Checkpoint Charlie scene in this story. She’s not going to come tottering toward us through the mist and the fog, smiling bravely, with Jade holding her hand. That’s not going to happen. So we’re going to have to get proactive at some point.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“After you’ve switched the bag I’ll get out around the next corner. I’ll double back and see what I can see.”
“Who says you’ll see anything?”
“They’ll have four and a half million bucks sitting in an unlocked car. My guess is they won’t leave it there very long. So I’ll see something.”
“Will it help us?”
“A lot more than sitting upstairs doing nothing will help us.”
“Lane will kill me.”
“He doesn’t have to know anything about it. I’ll be back well after you. You’ll say you have no idea what happened to me. I’ll say I went for a walk.”
“Lane will kill you if you screw it up.”
“I’ll kill myself if I screw it up.”
“I’m serious. He’ll kill you.”
“My risk.”
“Kate’s risk.”
“You still banking on the Checkpoint Charlie scenario?”
Burke paused. Ten seconds. Fifteen.
“Get in,” he said.
CHAPTER 14
BURKE STUCK LANE’S cell phone in a hands-free cradle mounted on the BMW’s dash and Reacher crawled into the rear footwell on his hands and knees. There was grit on the carpet. It was a rear-drive car and the transmission hump made it an uncomfortable location. Burke started up and waited for a hole in the traffic and then U-turned and headed south on Central Park West. Reacher squirmed around until the transmission tunnel was wedged above his hips and below his ribs.
“Don’t hit any big bumps,” he said.
“We’re not supposed to talk,” Burke said.
“Only after they call.”
“Believe it,” Burke said. “You see this?”
Reacher struggled a little more upright and saw Burke pointing at a small black bud on the driver’s-side A-pillar up near the sun visor.
“Microphone,” Burke said. “For the cell. Real sensitive. You sneeze back there, they’ll hear you.”
“Will I hear them? On a speaker?”
“On ten speakers,” Burke said. “The phone is wired through the audio system. It cuts in automatically.”
Reacher lay down and Burke drove on, slowly. Then he made a tight right turn.
“Where are we now?” Reacher asked.
“Fifty-seventh Street,” Burke said. “Traffic is murder. I’m going to get on the West Side Highway and head south. My guess is they’ll want us downtown somewhere. That’s where they’ve got to be. Street parking for the Jaguar would be impossible anyplace else right now. I can come back north on the East River Drive if they don’t call before we get to the Battery.”
Reacher felt the car stop and start, stop and start. Above him the money bag rolled one way and then the other.
“You serious that this could be just one guy?” Burke asked.
“Minimum of one,” Reacher said.
“Everything’s a minimum of one.”
“Therefore it’s possible.”
“Therefore we should take him down. Make him talk. Solve the whole problem right there.”
“But suppose it’s not just one guy.”
“Maybe we should gamble.”
“What were you?” Reacher asked. “Back in the day?”
“Delta,” Burke said.
“Did you know Lane in the service?”
“I’ve known him forever.”
“How would you have done the thing outside Bloomingdale’s?”
“Quick and dirty inside the car. As soon as Taylor stopped.”
“That’s what Groom said.”
“Groom’s a smart guy, for a jarhead. You disagree with him?”
“No.”
“It would be the only way. This isn’t Mexico City or Bogotá or Rio de Janeiro. This is New York. You couldn’t survive a fuss on the sidewalk. You’ve got eight beat cops right there, two on each corner, armed and dangerous, worried about terrorists. No, quick and dirty inside the car would be the only way at Bloomingdale’s.”
“But why would you have been at Bloomingdale’s at all?”
“It’s the obvious place. It’s Mrs. Lane’s favorite store. She gets all her stuff there. She loves that big brown bag.”
“But who would have known that?”
Burke was quiet for a spell.
“That’s a very good question,” he said.
Then the phone rang.
CHAPTER 15
THE RING TONE sounded weird, coming in over ten high-quality automobile speakers. It filled the whole car. It sounded very loud and rich and full and precise. The cellular network’s harsh electronic edge was taken right off it. It purred.
“Shut up now,” Burke said.
He leaned to his right and hit a button on the Samsung.
“Hello?” he said.
“Good evening,” a voice said back, so slowly and carefully and mechanically that it made four separate words out of two. Like: Good-Eve-Ven-Ing.
It was a hell of a voice. It was completely amazing. It was so heavily processed that there would be no chance of recognizing it again without the electronic machine. The machines were commercial items sold in spy stores. Reacher had seen them. They clamped over the telephone mouthpiece. On one side was a microphone, which was backed by circuit boards, and then came a small crude loudspeaker. Battery powered. There were rotary dials that shaped the sound. Zero to ten, for various different parameters. The dials on this machine must have been cranked all the way to eleven. The high frequencies were entirely missing. The low tones had been scooped out and turned around and reconstituted. They boomed and thumped like an irregular heartbeat. There was a phase effect that hissed and roared on every drawn breath and made the voice sound like it was hurtling through outer space. There was a metallic pulse that came and went. It sounded like a sheet of heavy steel being hit with a hammer. The volume was set very high. Over the BMW’s ten speakers the voice sounded huge and alien. Gigantic. Like a direct connection to a nightmare.
“Who am I speaking with?” it asked, slowly.
“The driver,” Burke said. “The guy with the money.”
“I want your name,” the voice said.
Burke said, “My name is Burke.”
The nightmare voice asked, “Who’s that in the car with you?”
“There’s nobody in the car with me,” Burke said. “I’m all alone.”
“Are you lying?”
“No, I’m not lying,” Burke said.
Reacher figured there might be a lie detector hooked up to the other end of the phone. Probably a simple device sold in the same kind of spy stores as the distortion machines. Plastic boxes, green lights and red lights. They were supposed to be able to detect the kind of voice stress that comes with lying. Reacher replayed Burke’s answers in his head and figured they would pass muster. It would be a crude machine and Delta soldiers were taught to beat better tests than a person could buy retail on Madison Avenue. And after a second it was clear that the box had indeed lit up green because the nightmare voice just went ahead calmly and asked, “Where are you now, Mr. Burke?”
“Fifty-seventh Street,” Burke said. “I’m heading west. I’m about to get on the West Side Highway.”
“You’re a long way from where I want you.”
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am.”
“Where do you want me?”
“Take the highway, if that’s what you prefer. Go south.”
“Give me time,” Burke said. “Traffic is real bad.”
“Worried?”
“How would you feel?”
&n
bsp; “Stay on the line,” the voice said.
The sound of distorted breathing filled the car. It was slow and deep. Unworried, Reacher thought. A patient person, in control, in command, safe somewhere. He felt the car sprint and hook left. Onto the highway through a yellow light, he thought. Take care, Burke. A traffic stop could be real awkward tonight.
“I’m on the highway now,” Burke said. “Heading south.”
“Keep going,” the voice said. Then it lapsed back to breathing. There was an audio compressor somewhere in the chain. Either in the voice machine itself or in the BMW’s stereo. The breathing started out quiet and then ramped up slowly until it was roaring in Reacher’s ears. The whole car was filled with it. It felt like being inside a lung.
Then the breathing stopped and the voice asked, “How’s the traffic?”
“Lots of red lights,” Burke said.
“Keep going.”
Reacher tried to follow the route in his head. He knew there were plenty of lights between 57th Street and 34th Street. The Passenger Ship Terminal, the Intrepid, the Lincoln Tunnel approaches.
“I’m at Forty-second Street now,” Burke said.
Reacher thought: Are you talking to me? Or the voice?
“Keep going,” the voice said.
“Is Mrs. Lane OK?” Burke asked.
“She’s fine.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“No.”
“Is Jade OK, too?”
“Don’t worry about either one of them. Just keep on driving.”
American, Reacher thought. For sure. Behind the wall of distortion he could hear the inflections of a native speaker. Reacher had heard more than his share of foreign accents, but this wasn’t one of them.
“I’m at the Javits now,” Burke said.
“Just keep going,” the voice said back.
Young, Reacher thought. Or at least not old. All the dirt and grit in the voice came from the electronic circuitry, not from the effects of age. Not a big guy, Reacher thought. The booming bass was artificial. There was a speed and a lightness there. No big chest cavity. Or, maybe a fat guy. Maybe one of those fat guys who have high-pitched voices.
“How much farther?” Burke asked.
“You low on gas?” the voice asked.
“No.”
“So what do you care?”
The breathing came back, slow and steady. Not close yet, Reacher thought.
“Coming up on Twenty-fourth Street,” Burke said.
“Keep going.”
The Village, Reacher thought. We’re going back to Greenwich Village. The car was moving faster now. Most of the left turns into the West Village were blocked off, so there were fewer lights. And most of the traffic would be going north, not south. A clear run, relatively speaking. Reacher craned his neck and got an angle through the rear side window. He could see buildings with the evening sun reflected in their windows. They flashed past in a dizzy kaleidoscope.
The voice asked, “Where are you now?”
“Perry,” Burke said.
“Keep going. But stand by now.”
Getting close, Reacher thought. Houston? Are we going to take Houston Street? Then he thought: Stand by now? That’s a military term. But is it exclusively military? Is this guy ex-military, too? Or not? Is he a civilian? A wannabe?
“Morton Street,” Burke said.
“Left turn in three blocks,” the voice said. “On Houston.”
He knows New York City, Reacher thought. He knows that Houston is three blocks south of Morton and he knows you say it House-ton, not like the place in Texas.
“OK,” Burke said.
Reacher felt the car slow. It stopped. It waited and inched forward. Then it sprinted to catch the light. Reacher rolled heavily against the rear seat.
“East on Houston now,” Burke said.
“Keep going,” the voice said.
The traffic on Houston was slow. Cobblestones, stop signs, potholes, lights. Reacher paced it out in his head. Washington Street, Greenwich Street, Hudson Street. Then Varick, where he had come up out of the subway for his fruitless morning vigil. The car bounced over patches of frost heave and thumped into dips.
“Sixth Avenue next,” Burke said.
The voice said, “Take it.”
Burke turned left. Reacher craned his neck again and saw the apartments above his new favorite café.
The voice said, “Get in the right-hand lane. Now.”
Burke dabbed the brake hard and Reacher jolted forward and hit the front seat. He heard the turn signal click. Then the car jumped right. And slowed.
The voice said, “You’ll see your target on the right. The green Jaguar. From the first morning. Exactly halfway up the block. On the right.”
“I already see it,” Burke said.
Reacher thought: The same place? It’s right there on the same damn fireplug?
The voice said, “Stop and make the transfer.”
Reacher felt the transmission slam into Park and he heard the click of the hazard lights start up. Then Burke’s door opened and noise blew in. The suspension rocked as Burke climbed out. There was honking on the street behind. An instant traffic jam. Ten seconds later the door next to Reacher’s head opened wide. Burke didn’t look down. Just leaned in and grabbed the bag. Reacher craned his neck the other way and looked at the Jaguar upside down. Saw a flash of dark green paint. Then the door shut in his face. He heard the Jaguar’s door open. Then he heard it shut again. He heard a faint hydraulic thunk from somewhere outside. Ten seconds after that Burke was back in his seat. He was a little out of breath.
“The transfer is done,” he said. “The money is in the Jaguar.”
The nightmare voice said, “Goodbye.”
The phone clicked off. The car filled with silence. Profound and absolute.
“Go now,” Reacher said. “Turn right on Bleecker.”
Burke took off with the hazard warning still clicking. He caught the light and barged through the crosswalk. Accelerated for twenty yards and then jammed on the brakes hard. Reacher fumbled horizontally above his head and found the door handle. Pulled it and butted the door open and scrambled out. He stood up and slammed the door and paused for a second and tugged his shirt down. Then he hustled back to the corner.
CHAPTER 16
REACHER STOPPED WHILE he was still on Bleecker and jammed his hands in his pockets and then restarted at a more appropriate pace. He turned left onto Sixth like a man walking home. Maybe after a busy day at work, maybe planning a stop in a bar, maybe with grocery shopping on his mind. Just blending in, which he was surprisingly good at, given that he was always a head taller than anyone else around him. The height advantage was a mixed blessing for surveillance. It made him theoretically conspicuous. But it meant he could see farther than the average guy. Simple trigonometry. He stayed in the middle of the sidewalk and looked straight ahead and put the green Jaguar firmly in his peripheral vision. Checked left. Nothing. Checked right, over the Jaguar’s roof.
And saw a guy six feet from the driver’s door.
It was the same guy he had seen the very first night. He was absolutely sure of that. Same stature, same posture, same movements, same clothes. White, a little sunburned, lean, chiseled, clean-shaven, jaw clamped, not smiling, maybe forty years old. Calm, focused, intent. Neat and quick, dodging traffic, just into his final two strides before reaching the car. Fluid, economical movements. The guy pulled the door and slid into the seat and started the engine and clipped his belt and took a long glance back over his shoulder at the traffic. Then he pulled out neatly into a gap and took off north. Reacher kept on walking south but turned his head to watch him go. The guy flashed past, out of sight.
Six seconds, beginning to end. Maybe less.
And for what?
Just a white guy, average height, average weight, dressed like every other off-duty white guy in the city. Jeans, shirt, sneakers, ball cap. Maybe forty. Unremarkable in every way. Description? Nothing t
o say, except: Just a guy.
Reacher glanced south at the river of traffic. There were no free cabs coming. None at all. So he turned again and jogged back to the corner of Bleecker to see if Burke had waited for him. But Burke hadn’t. So Reacher set out walking. He was too frustrated to take the subway. He needed to walk it off. He charged north on Sixth, fast and furious, and people moved out of his way like he was radioactive.
* * *
Twenty minutes and twenty blocks later he saw a Staples store on the opposite sidewalk. Red and white signs. Windows full of office supply bargains. He dodged cars and crossed over to check it out. It was a big place. He didn’t know which branch Carter Groom had taken Kate Lane to, but he figured chains carried the same stuff everywhere. He went inside and passed a corral made from inch-thick chrome bars where shopping trolleys were racked together. Beyond that on the left were the checkout registers. Beyond the trolleys on the right was a print shop full of industrial-strength photocopiers. In front of him were about twenty narrow aisles with shelves that reached the ceiling. They were piled high with an intimidating array of stuff. He started at the left front corner and zigzagged all the way through the store to the rear of the last aisle on the right. The biggest thing he saw was a desk. The smallest, either a thumbtack or a paperclip, depending on whether he judged by size or weight. He saw paper, computers, printers, toner cartridges, pens, pencils, envelopes, file boxes, plastic crates, parcel tape. He saw things he had never seen before. Software for designing houses and filing taxes. Label printers. Cell phones that took video pictures and sent e-mail.
He walked back to the front of the store with absolutely no idea at all of what Kate Lane might have been looking for.
He stood in a daze and watched a photocopier at work. It was a machine as big as a launderette dryer and it was spitting copies out so hard and so fast that it was rocking back and forth on its feet. And costing some customer a fortune. That was clear. A sign overhead said that photocopying cost between four cents and two dollars a sheet, depending on the quality of the paper and the choice between black and white and color. A lot of money, potentially. Opposite the print shop corral was a display of inkjet cartridges. They were expensive, too. Reacher had no idea what they were for. Or what they did. Or why they cost so much. He pushed past a line of people at a checkout desk and headed for the street.
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