by Dan Ames
Deerfield glanced at Riswold, and was hoping that his assistant would tell him the search had been a waste of time.
“We got something,” Riswold announced, with a grimace.
Deerfield tried to keep the look of disappointment and anguish off his face.
"Tell me," he said.
9
His name was Barnes and he had been the supervising physician at the Colorado prison for the better part of a decade. He’d been in private practice for most of his career until his customer base had dwindled. In many cases, he’d outlived his patients. That, and the changes in health insurance, along with his ability to adapt to changes in medicine, many of them digital-based, had ultimately resulted in the decline of his business.
It was at that point he had considered retiring, but a costly divorce had left him with much less money than he had planned on having. So when the opportunity presented itself, via a formal colleague, to assume the position of director of medicine for the prison, he decided to accept it.
The money wasn’t as good as it had been during the peak of running his own business, but it was steady work and the government pay wasn’t bad. He figured that if he worked steadily for a few years, he could eventually make up for the money he’d lost when the marriage collapsed. Maybe even have a little fun and travel, meet a new woman.
Those thoughts were nowhere to be found at the moment.
Instead, Dr. Barnes simply waited. His instructions had told him further actions would be required and eventually they did come, when the woman next to him spoke.
“We’re going to leave now,” she said. “You remember what I told you to do.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me again.”
He went through the set of instructions word for word and when he was finished, she replied,“Very good. Let’s go.”
The doctor put the handcuffs on the woman and retrieved his briefcase, white coat and car keys. He opened the door and used his key card to open the outer security door.
From there, the security was much less restricted, as the outer doors leading in were highly secure. The planners had figured if someone had already made it this far, they were of a much lower security risk.
The doors at the rear of the medical ward were also controlled by two sets of manned exit doors. The doctor nodded to the guard, who was watching a baseball game on the small screen television he’d installed next to the security camera. Dr. Barnes used his security card to lead himself and his prisoner through the secure doors.
Barnes followed the hallway down to the right, where a side door led down a set of stairs to an underground garage. After another swipe of the security card, the door opened and they were outside.
Barnes heard the woman next to him take a deep intake of breath.
Fresh air.
They walked quickly to the doctor’s vehicle, which he had parked in a spot away from his assigned space. This one was very close to the exit doors and also between the two prison ambulances, which blocked them from any view of the security cameras that covered the rest of the garage.
They went to the back of the vehicle, a black Cadillac sedan. Barnes popped the trunk, and used a key to unlock the prisoner’s handcuffs. He then watched as she climbed into the trunk. He had placed a coroner’s bag inside, unzipped.
The woman climbed into the bag.
Barnes zipped it nearly shut, leaving a space at the mouth.
Once that was done, he closed the trunk.
Behind the wheel, he pulled out from the garage and drove to the prison’s exit gate. This was manned by an armed guard, as well as a guard in the tower fifty feet away with a rifle. Barnes thought nothing of it. He’d left the prison hundreds, maybe even thousands of times and it was like an old routine. In fact, the guards all knew him well.
Barnes rolled down the window and held out his card to the guard who manned the exit booth.
The guard scanned it, and did a cursory glance in the interior of the car.
“Off to the course?” the guard asked. He had been at the prison longer than Barnes, and shared a love of golf. The guard was often envious of the doctor being able to finish the day early and play a quick nine.
“No, I’m afraid not. Work to do at the hospital,” he said, reproducing the script he’d been provided without missing a beat. There was more to discuss about his work at the hospital if the guard asked to look in the trunk, something he did occasionally, maybe once a year. A story was ready about the dead woman in the trunk, whose papers showed she was destined for the medical college where students were going to dissect her.
The invented tale was for naught.
“Keep your head down,” the guard said. “Drive for show, putt for dough.”
The doctor nodded as the prison gates opened.
He drove through them, and turned right on the rural Colorado highway.
He watched in the rearview mirror as the prison gate closed.
In his mind, he knew exactly where he was going and he would get there strictly following the speed limit. Once they arrived, he would simply wait for the next set of instructions.
10
Ever since Jack Reacher had left, Hope hadn’t been the same.
As in, the town of Hope, Colorado.
But for Officer Ellen Vaughan, she also felt that absence of hope in her heart.
She and Reacher had uncovered a grand conspiracy in the nearby town of Despair, and put a stop to it. In the process, they had become very close and Reacher had helped her deal with her husband, a severely wounded veteran who’d been left to live a life of hopelessness. Eventually, her husband had passed away.
But immediately after the case in Despair, Reacher had left. Vaughan understood it was his way, that he had spent his career in the Army and now preferred to move around the country devoid of attachments. A rogue. A wanderer.
Reacher’s exit had left Vaughan with little more than Hope, the town. She was one of a handful of cops in the little town in Colorado and she loved the place. She and her husband, a National Guardsman who’d suffered his gruesome injuries in Iraq, had lived in Hope. When he’d returned from the war, essentially on life support, she had stayed. Even bought a little house and planned for her husband’s recovery, but it never happened. He never improved and eventually the end came.
First Reacher. And then her husband.
Now, it was just Vaughan and Hope.
She was sitting in the diner Reacher had preferred when he had taken the place by storm. She’d watched him drink black coffee by the gallon, along with plenty of eggs, bacon and toast. It had amazed her how much he could eat. Then again, she remembered his size. The enormous shoulders, long arms and cords of muscle. They all required calories to maintain. Plenty of them.
He’d been a physical specimen, and had the skills to match. He’d put six men in the infirmary in Despair, in one barroom brawl.
Vaughan pushed away thoughts of Reacher, paid her bill and went out to her squad car. She got behind the wheel, let dispatch know she was available, and immediately got a call to investigate a stranded motorist call on the west side of town.
She put the car in gear and cruised down the streets, winding her way out of town, to a small country road, unmarked, where dispatch had said the call originated.
Her tires crunched on gravel as she swung onto the tiny, one-track road. Towering evergreens lined each side and dark shadows obscured the path. Vaughan almost wished for her old Chevy truck, a rugged vehicle with almost two hundred thousand miles on it. But it, too, had lost the battle and eventually she donated it to charity.
Now, she cruised slowly down the darkened lane.
A lost tourist, Vaughan figured.
Why else would someone turn down this road?
She passed a deserted residence with an ancient real estate sign in the front. Maybe the stranded motorist was an eager real estate agent looking for properties that would be considered diamonds-in-the-rough. They certainly still existed in
this part of Colorado. Plenty of hidden gems, back roads, and abandoned properties. This area wasn’t ever going to be upscale like Aspen, but there was always Hope, pun intended.
In the dim light ahead, a chrome grill appeared, tilted to the side. A wheel was off the vehicle and on the ground.
It looked like someone had maybe gotten a flat and tried to change the tire and had the vehicle fall off the jack, which happened all the time.
Very dangerous, as a person could become crushed or trapped under the vehicle. She’d seen it happen before.
Vaughan idly wondered if there was even room for an ambulance to get into the tight space, let alone a tow truck.
She pulled her patrol car up to the nose of the impaired vehicle, put the transmission in Park, and got out.
As she walked closer she saw that it was an SUV, an older model, but there was no logo on the grill. It was definitely canted to one side, and she wondered if the driver had given up waiting for help and walked out of the area. Which would have been strange because she hadn’t seen anyone.
There was also no sign of anyone at all. Vaughan circled the vehicle, saw the tire loose and the jack on its side. Strange, the tire didn’t look flat or damaged in any way.
“Hello?” she called out.
Vaughan walked to the rear of the vehicle to get the license plate number and reached up to thumb the radio attached to the front of her uniform but as her fingers closed around it, she heard the softest whisper of gravel stirring behind her and she realized she’d made a very bad mistake.
The blow caught her at the base of her skull and a bright explosion filled her vision and then everything disappeared into black.
11
Walking to work was one of the many pleasures of living in New York City. Yes, the restaurants were second to none, as well as the theater and cultural offerings, but for Pauling, walking was right up there with the best of them.
Pauling never took walking for granted, even during the winter, or when it was raining. For years, she had commuted to and from the FBI building and she never forgot those daily drives. She’d grown to hate them, despising the traffic, road rage and long periods of sitting.
Walking, even at its worst, was so much better than driving.
Sure, you had the challenges of being a pedestrian in New York. Angry, aggressive people. The ambulatory equivalent of road rage – pushing and shoving, shouting. Threatening to perform certain physical acts on specific parts of the body.
There were days where it seemed the wind might be able to actually pick you up off your feet and toss you around like a cyclone of fallen leaves.
But after working in the office, it was always a bonus to be able to walk back to her co-op, breathe some fresh air, maybe even see the sun if it was early enough and the right time of season.
Pauling took a moment to appreciate the morning. It was cool, with a gray sky overhead and just a tinge of scent from the rain the night before.
Dressed in jeans with a black top and leather jacket, she looked like a hip executive on the way to a meeting, as opposed to a highly paid private investigator.
There was a lot on her plate today. One case in particular, a corporate blackmail scheme involving a group of former employees, was almost at its completion. There would be a lot of paperwork involved with that one, and once again Pauling questioned her decision not to hire additional help for her firm.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford it, because she could. It was just the idea of having someone full-time on the payroll, in the office, that caused her to rebel. She liked the freedom she currently had and the responsibility that came with a full-time staff was not something she was interested in. The many companies who offered to buy her out used that as a way to entice her to sell. They put forth proposals detailing how they would “staff up” for her, not realizing it was the opposite of what she actually desired.
The world was full of people who were always ready to tell you how much better they could live your life, if only you would let them.
Pauling wasn’t falling for it.
She crossed West 4th Street and was about to turn into her building’s front door when a voice called out.
“Pauling!”
She already knew what it was because it had been impossible to miss the long, black car double parked at the curb.
An obvious FBI vehicle and the parking job was a classic FBI move, too. One she herself had utilized many times during her career.
Pauling turned and studied the man walking toward her. He was in his early thirties, short black hair, crisp white shirt, dark suit, neatly pressed. He walked purposefully, but not confidently, a sure sign that he was a very junior agent. The confidence bordering on arrogance would come with time and experience. For now, he was mostly an errand boy.
“I’m Agent Starr,” he said. He was about to continue when Pauling interrupted him.
“Let’s see some ID,” she stated.
Starr was momentarily caught off-guard, but then he retrieved his FBI ID from inside his pocket and showed her.
It was legit.
“Would it be possible for you to accompany me to headquarters?” Starr asked. “There’s a priority situation and the assistant secretary would like to discuss it with you. An agent’s life is at stake and it is believed you may be able to shed some light on the situation. We can have you back to your office before noon.”
All of the information was right there for her, as planned. The speech had been thought through, giving her the motivation to follow orders. Urgency. Name-dropping the secretary’s title, along with just enough white space to intrigue her. And then the final mention of how brief the excursion would be, in order to make her feel guilty for turning them down. Even though the idea of her being back by noon was an obvious lie.
From time to time, Pauling was contacted by the Bureau, but it was usually administrative in nature. Maybe something from her file, updating addresses, or a request for case notes.
Never had there been a surprise, in-person summons, though.
“Give me five minutes,” she said.
Without waiting for a response, Pauling went up to her office, answered one priority email and forwarded all calls to her cell phone. She used the restroom and made a quick coffee to go.
Back downstairs, she greeted Agent Starr.
“Let’s go,” she said.
12
The Asian woman was fun.
You got a little creative with her, and took a little bit of pleasure, too. Why not? There was just so much satisfaction to be had on every level. She has been your favorite piece of the first puzzle.
So far, anyway.
You almost want to laugh. It’s been so easy. Oh, the work was hard leading up to this. The planning, the research, the painstaking organization complete with names, dates and timelines that had constantly needed to be reshuffled. It seemed like it would drive you crazy at some point.
Maybe it did.
You consider that. That maybe after everything that happened, you went off the deep end. Dove headfirst into the cracker factory. It’s quite possible you’ve become mentally ill. But, so what?
You’re still working. Still moving. Forging ahead with relative ease and plenty of early success.
You feel downright good about how the plan is unfolding.
Like a coach watching a play develop exactly as you’d outlined it on a chalkboard.
Very satisfying.
But the days of it being a mental exercise are gone.
You imagine a general during war mapping out battalions and troop movements, not really enjoying it though, until you set foot on the battlefield.
Smell the blood.
The burning.
Death made real.
Now, it’s time for you to move to the next phase. Just as much planning had gone into it, even more. Significantly more, in fact. But the pleasure would increase a hundred fold, at the least.
The plan had been so long-term tha
t you wonder if it will actually work. You know it will, but there are a million things that could go haywire. Still, your unwavering belief in your own intellect is what carries you through.
You know that it will work out.
And when it does, you will show no mercy.
13
The FBI Office in New York City is on Broadway, in the Federal Plaza, housed in a building made of steel and glass. Utilitarian. Not flashy. Business-like.
The black sedan pulled up in front and deposited Pauling and Agent Starr onto the street. A bus roared past and a family of tourists stared at them, probably wondering if they were famous.
Starr ignored them and led the way inside.
Using his badge he swiped their way through the outer security stations and navigated them to a bank of elevators which they took to the tenth floor. Inside, they were silent. Starr watched the numbers of the elevator intently, as if he would need to spring into action should they not proceed correctly.
The doors opened and they followed a short hallway to double glass doors emblazoned with the FBI logo. Starr took them through the doors, down a hallway to a conference room.
A man stood as they entered.
“Pauling,” he said. “I’m Assistant Secretary Deerfield of the New York field office.”
Pauling noted he was short, with a head of bristly gray hair, wire-rimmed glasses behind which sat two, piercing blue eyes.
Around the table were several other Bureau agents.
Starr took a seat farthest away.
Pauling took the empty chair across from the others seated at the table.
Deerfield nodded and the first one spoke. He was a short, squat man with dark skin and a smooth, bald head. “I’m Rodriguez,” he said. His voice was oddly high-pitched in stark contrast to his bulk.
“Ferguson,” the woman to his right said. She was sandy-haired, with stylish, thick black glasses. They appeared to be the only thing unique about her. As if she’d chosen her eyewear to be the one way in which she refused to blend in.