by Lee Child
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“A bullshit story from beginning to end,” she said. “He hadn’t just screwed up on a case. He never screwed up on any case. He wasn’t especially depressed. And he didn’t drink. Never touched a drop. So he certainly wasn’t falling down drunk. And he would never socialize with Morrison. Or the damn mayor. He just wouldn’t. He didn’t like them. Never in a million years would he spend a social evening with them. And he had no family. So all that stuff about his family and sensitivity and dignity is total bullshit. They killed him and bullshitted the coroner so he wouldn’t look too closely.”
I sat there in the car and let the rage pour out of her. Then she was quiet and still. She was figuring out how they’d done it.
“Do you think it was Morrison and Teale?” she asked me.
“And somebody else,” I said. “There were three guys involved. I figure the three of them went around to his place and knocked on the door. Gray opened up and Teale pulled a gun. Morrison and the third guy grabbed him and held him by the arms. That explains the bruising. Teale maybe poured a bottle of whiskey down his throat, or at least splashed it all over his clothes. They hustled him off to the garage and strung him up.”
Roscoe started the car and eased it out of the hospital lot. She drove slowly over the speed bumps. Then she swung the wheel and blasted up the road through the countryside toward Margrave.
“They killed him,” she said. Just a simple statement. “Like they killed Joe. I think I know how you must be feeling.”
I nodded.
“They’ll pay for it,” I said. “For both of them.”
“You bet your ass,” she said.
We fell silent. Sped north for a while, then merged with the county road. A straight twelve miles up to Margrave.
“Poor old Gray,” she said. “I can’t believe it. He was so smart, so cautious.”
“Not smart enough,” I said. “Or cautious enough. We’ve got to remember that. You know the rules, right? Don’t be on your own. If you see somebody coming, run like hell. Or shoot the bastard. Stick with Finlay if you can, OK?”
She was concentrating on driving. She was doing a hell of a speed up the straight road. Thinking about Finlay.
“Finlay,” she repeated. “You know what I can’t figure?”
“What?” I said.
“There’s the two of them, right?” she said. “Teale and Morrison. They run the town for Kliner. They run the police department. Between them, they run everything. Their chief of detectives is Gray. An old guy, a wise head, smart and stubborn. He’s been there for twenty-five years, since well before any of this shit started up. They inherited him and they can’t get rid of him. So sure enough, one day their smart and stubborn detective sniffs them out. He’s found out that something is going on. And they find out that he’s found out. So they put him out of the way. They murder him to keep it all safe. Then what do they do next?”
“Go on,” I said.
“They hire in a replacement,” she said. “Finlay, down from Boston. A guy who is even smarter and even more stubborn than Gray was. Why the hell would they do that? If Gray was a danger to them, then Finlay would be twice as dangerous. So why did they do that? Why did they hire somebody even smarter than the last guy?”
“That’s easy,” I said. “They thought Finlay was really dumb.”
“Dumb?” she said. “How the hell could they think that?”
So I told her the story Finlay had told me on Monday over donuts at the convenience store counter. About his divorce. About his mental state at the time. What had he said? He was a basket case. An idiot. Couldn’t string two words together.
“Chief Morrison and Mayor Teale interviewed him,” I told her. “He thought it was the worst job application in history. He thought he had come across as an idiot. He was totally amazed they gave him the job. Now I understand why they did. They really were looking for an idiot.”
Roscoe laughed. That made me feel better.
“God,” she said. “That’s ironic. They must have sat down and planned it out. Gray was a problem, they said. Better replace him with a fool, they said. Better pick the worst candidate who applies, they said.”
“Right,” I said. “And they did. They picked a shell-shocked idiot from Boston. But by the time he turns up to start work, he’s calmed down and turned back into the cool and intelligent guy he always was.”
She smiled about that for two miles. Then we crested a slight rise and began the long sweep down into Margrave. We were tensed up. It was like entering the battle zone. We’d been out of it for a while. Sweeping back into it didn’t feel good. I had expected to feel better when I had identified the opposing players. But it wasn’t what I had expected. It wasn’t me against them, played out against a neutral background. The background wasn’t neutral. The background was the opposition. The whole town was in it. The whole place was bought and paid for. Nobody would be neutral. We were barreling down the rise at seventy miles an hour toward a dangerous mess. More dangerous than I had expected.
Roscoe slowed up at the town limit. The big Chevy glided onto Margrave’s glassy blacktop. The magnolia and dogwood scrub to the left and right was replaced by velvet lawns and ornamental cherries. Those trees with smooth shiny trunks. Like the bark was buffed by hand. In Margrave, it probably was. The Kliner Foundation was probably paying somebody a handsome salary to do it.
We passed the neat blocks of stores, all of them empty and complacent, floating on an unearned thousand a week. We jinked around the village green with the statue of Caspar Teale. Wafted past the turn down to Roscoe’s house with its smashed front door. Past the convenience store. Past the benches under the smart awnings. Past the parkland where the bars and rooming houses had been, back when Margrave was honest. Then up to the station house. We pulled off into the lot and parked up. Charlie Hubble’s Bentley was still there where I’d left it.
Roscoe killed the motor and we sat for a minute. Didn’t want to get out. We squeezed hands, her right, my left. A brief good luck gesture. We got out of the car. Into battle.
THE STATION HOUSE WAS COOL AND DESERTED EXCEPT FOR Baker at his desk and Finlay on his way out of the rosewood office in back. He saw us and hurried over.
“Teale’s back in ten minutes,” he said. “And we got a slight problem.”
He hustled us back to the office. We went in and he shut the door.
“Picard called,” he said.
“So what’s the problem?” I said.
“It’s the safe house,” he said. “Where Charlie and the kids are hiding out? That situation has to stay unofficial, right?”
“He told me that,” I said. “He’s out on a limb up there.”
“Exactly,” he said. “That’s the problem. He can’t staff it. He needs somebody to be up there with Charlie. He’s been doing duty himself. But he can’t do any more. Can’t take any more time out. And he feels it’s not appropriate, you know, Charlie being a woman, and the little girl and all. Kid’s terrified of him.”
He looked over at Roscoe. She saw where the conversation was going.
“He wants me up there?” she asked.
“Just for twenty-four hours,” Finlay said. “That’s what he’s asking for. Will you do it for him?”
Roscoe shrugged. Smiled.
“Of course I will,” she said. “No problem. I can spare a day. As long as you promise to get me back when the fun starts, OK?”
“That’s automatic,” Finlay said. “Fun can’t start until we’ve got the detail, and as soon as we’ve got the detail, Picard goes official and he puts his own agents into the safe house. You come back here.”
“OK,” Roscoe said. “When do I go?”
“Right now,” Finlay said. “He’ll be here any minute.”
She grinned at him.
“So you already figured I’d agree to it?” she said.
He grinned back at her.
“Like I told Reacher,” he said. “You’re the
best we got.”
She and I went back through the squad room and out through the glass doors. Roscoe took her valise out of the Chevy and set it on the curb.
“See you tomorrow, I guess,” she said.
“You going to be OK?” I asked her.
“Sure,” she said. “I’m going to be fine. Can’t get much safer than an FBI safe house, right? But I’m going to miss you, Reacher. I didn’t figure to spend time apart just yet.”
I squeezed her hand. She kissed me on the cheek. Just stretched up for a quick peck. Finlay pushed the station house door open. I heard the suck of the rubber seal. He stuck his head out and called over to Roscoe.
“You better give Picard an update, OK?” he said.
Roscoe nodded to him. Then we stood waiting in the sun. Didn’t have to wait long. Picard’s blue sedan squealed into the lot within a couple of minutes. Bounced to a stop right next to us. The big guy folded himself out of the seat and stood up. Just about blotted out the sun.
“I appreciate this, Roscoe,” he said to her. “You’re really helping me out.”
“No problem,” she said. “You’re helping us out, right? Where is this place I’m going?”
Picard grinned a harassed grin. Nodded toward me.
“I can’t say where it is,” he told her. “Not in front of civilians, right? I’m way out of line already. And I’m going to have to ask you not to tell him afterward, OK? And Reacher, don’t you press her about it, or Charlie, OK?”
“OK,” I said. I wouldn’t press her about it. She’d tell me anyway.
“Good,” Picard said.
He nodded a busy good-bye and picked up Roscoe’s bag. Threw it onto his rear seat. Then the two of them got into the blue sedan and drove off. Nosed out of the lot and headed north. I waved after them. Then the car was lost to sight.
23
DETAILS. EVIDENCE GATHERING. SURVEILLANCE. IT’S THE basis of everything. You’ve got to settle down and watch long enough and hard enough to get what you need. While Roscoe made cups of coffee for Charlie Hubble and Finlay sat in the rosewood office, I was going to have to watch the warehouse operation. Long enough and hard enough until I got a feel for exactly how they did it. It could take me a full twenty-four hours. Could be Roscoe would get back before I did.
I got in the Bentley and cruised up the fourteen miles to the cloverleaf. Slowed down as I passed the warehouses. I needed to scout out a vantage point. The northbound on-ramp dived under the southbound off-ramp. There was a kind of low overpass. Short, wide concrete pillars hoisted the road overhead. I figured the thing to do would be to hole up behind one of those pillars. I would be well hidden in the gloom and the slight elevation would give me a good view of the whole warehouse area. That was my spot.
I accelerated the Bentley up the ramp and carried on north to Atlanta. Took an hour. I was picking up a rough idea of the geography. I wanted the low-rent shopping area and I found it easily enough. Saw the sort of street I wanted. Automobile customizers, pool table wholesalers, repossessed office furniture. I parked on the street in front of a storefront mission. Opposite me were two survival shops. I picked the left-hand one and went in.
The door worked a bell. The guy at the counter looked up. He was the usual type of guy. White man, black beard, camouflage fatigues, boots. He had a huge gold hoop in one ear. Looked like some kind of a pirate. He might have been a veteran. Might just have wanted to be one. He nodded to me.
He had the stuff I needed. I picked up olive fatigue pants and a shirt. Found a camouflage jacket big enough to fit. Looked at the pockets carefully. I had to get the Desert Eagle in there. Then I found a water canteen and some decent field glasses. Humped the whole lot over to the cash desk and piled it up. Pulled out my wad of hundreds. The guy with the beard looked at me.
“I could use a sap,” I said.
He looked at me and looked at my wad of hundreds. Then he ducked down and hoisted a box up. Looked heavy. I chose a fat sap about nine inches long. It was a leather tube. Taped at one end for a grip. Built around a plumber’s spring. The thing they put inside pipes before they bend them. It was packed around with lead shot. An efficient weapon. I nodded. Paid for everything and left. The bell rang again as I pushed open the door.
I moved the Bentley along a hundred yards and parked up in front of the first automobile shop I saw advertising window tinting. Leaned on the horn and got out to meet the guy coming out of the door.
“Can you put tints on this for me?” I asked him.
“On this thing?” he said. “Sure I can. I can put tints on anything.”
“How long?” I said.
The guy stepped up to the car and ran his finger down the silky coachwork.
“Thing like this, you want a first-rate job,” he said. “Take me a couple of days, maybe three.”
“How much?” I said.
He carried on feeling the paint and sucked air in through his teeth, like all car guys do when you ask them how much.
“Couple of hundred,” he said. “That’s for a first-rate job, and you don’t want anything less on a thing like this.”
“I’ll give you two fifty,” I said. “That’s for a better than first-rate job, and you loan me a car the two or three days it’s going to take you to do it, OK?”
The guy sucked in some more air and then slapped lightly on the Bentley’s hood.
“It’s a done deal, my friend,” he said.
I took the Bentley key off Charlie’s ring and exchanged it for an eight-year-old Cadillac the color of an old avocado pear. It seemed to drive pretty well and it was about as anonymous as you could hope to get. The Bentley was a lovely automobile, but it was not what I needed if the surveillance went mobile. It was about as distinctive as the most distinctive thing you could ever think of.
I CLEARED THE SOUTHERN RIM OF THE CITY AND STOPPED AT a gas station. Brimmed the old Cadillac’s big tank and bought candy bars and nuts and bottles of water. Then I used their toilet cubicle to get changed. I put on the military surplus gear and threw my old stuff into the towel bin. Went back out to the car. Put the Desert Eagle in the long inside pocket of my new jacket. Cocked and locked. Poured the spare bullets into the outside top pocket. Morrison’s switchblade was in the left side pocket and I put the sap in the right.
I shared the nuts and the candy bars around the other pockets. Poured a bottle of water into the canteen and went to work. Took me another hour to get back to Margrave. I drove the old Cadillac right around the cloverleaf. Up the on-ramp again, heading north. Backed up about a hundred yards along the shoulder and stopped right in the no-man’s-land between the off-ramp and the on-ramp. Where nobody would pass either leaving or joining the highway. Nobody would see the car except people shooting right past Margrave. And they wouldn’t care.
I popped the hood and propped it open. Locked up the car and left it like that. It made it invisible. Just a broken-down old sedan on the shoulder. A sight so ordinary, you don’t see it. Then I climbed over the low concrete wall at the edge of the shoulder. Scrambled down the high bank. Ran south and sprinted across the on-ramp. Carried on running for the shelter of the low overpass. I ran under the width of the highway to the other side and holed up behind a broad pillar. Over my head, the trucks coming off the highway rumbled around to the old county road. Then they ground their gears and branched right for the warehouses.
I settled back and got comfortable behind the pillar. I had a pretty good vantage point. Maybe two hundred yards distant, maybe thirty feet of elevation. The whole place was laid out below me like a diagram. The field glasses I’d bought were clear and powerful. There were actually four separate warehouses. All identical, built in a tight line, running away from me at an oblique angle. The whole area was ringed by a serious fence. Plenty of razor wire at the top. Each of the four compounds had its own inner fence. Each inner fence had its own gate. The outer fence held the main gate, fronting onto the road. The whole place was swarming with activity.
The first compound was totally innocent. The big roller door stood open. I could see local farm trucks rattling in and out. People were loading and unloading in plain view. Sturdy burlap sacks bulging with something or other. Maybe produce, maybe seed or fertilizer. Whatever farmers use. I had no idea. But there was nothing secret. Nothing hidden. All the trucks were local. Georgia plates on all of them. No out-of-state vehicles. Nothing big enough to roll south to north along the height of the nation. The first compound was clean, no doubt about that.
Same went for the second and third. Their gates stood open, their doors were up. All their activity was a cheerful swarm on their forecourts. Nothing secret. All in plain view. Different type of trucks, but all local. Couldn’t see what they were hauling. Wholesale stuff for the little country stores, maybe. Possibly manufactured goods going somewhere. Some kind of oil drums in the third shed. But nothing to get excited about.
The fourth warehouse was the one I was looking for. The one at the end of the row. No doubt about it. It was a smart location. Made a lot of sense. It was screened by the chaos on the first three forecourts. But because it was the last in line, none of the local farmers or merchants would ever need to pass it by. Nobody would get a look at it. A smart location. It was definitely the one. Beyond it, maybe seventy-five yards away in a field, was the blasted tree. The one Roscoe had picked out of the photograph of Stoller and Hubble and the yellow truck. A camera on the forecourt would pick up the tree just beyond the far corner of the structure. I could see that. This was the place, no doubt about it.
The big roller door across the front was closed. The gate was closed. There were two gatemen hanging around on the forecourt. Even from two hundred yards, the field glasses picked up their alert glances and the wary tension in their walks. Some kind of a security role. I watched them for a while. They strode around, but nothing was happening. So I shifted around to watch the road. Waited for a truck bound for the fourth compound.