by Lee Child
Then I checked Joe’s computer printout for the confirmation I thought was there. But there was a problem. A major problem. The paper was bone dry and crisp, but the writing had gone. The paper was completely blank. The swimming pool water had washed all the ink off. There were very faint blurred smudges, but I couldn’t make out the words. I shrugged to myself. I’d read it through a hundred times. I’d rely on my memory of what it had said.
Next stop was the basement. I fiddled around with the furnace until it kicked in. Then I stripped off and shoved all my clothes in Charlie’s electric dryer. Set it on low for an hour. I had no idea what I was doing. In the army, some corporal had done my laundry. Took it away, brought it back clean and folded. Since then, I always bought cheap stuff and just junked it.
I walked upstairs naked and went into Hubble’s bathroom. Took a long hot shower and scrubbed the mascara off my face. Stood for a long time in the hot water. Wrapped myself up in a towel and went down for the coffee.
I couldn’t go up to Atlanta that night. I couldn’t get there before maybe three thirty in the morning. That was the wrong time to be sure of talking my way inside. I had no ID to show and no proper status. A night visit could turn into a problem. I would have to leave it until tomorrow, first thing. No choice.
So I thought about sleeping. I turned the kitchen radio off and wandered through to Hubble’s den. Turned the television off. Looked around. It was a dark, snug room. Lots of wood paneling and big leather chairs. Next to the television was a stereo. Some kind of a Japanese thing. Rows of compact discs and cassette tapes. Big emphasis on the Beatles. Hubble had said he’d been interested in John Lennon. He’d been to the Dakota in New York City and to Liverpool in England. He had just about everything. All the albums, a few bootlegs, that singles collection on CD they sold in a wooden box.
Over the desk was a bookshelf. Stacks of professional periodicals and a row of heavy books. Technical banking journals and reports. The professional periodicals took up a couple of feet of shelf space. They looked pretty deadly. Random copies of something calling itself the Banking Journal. A couple of issues of a solid magazine called Bank Management. One called Banker. Banker’s Magazine, Banker’s Monthly, Business Journal, Business Week, Cash Management Bulletin, The Economist, The Financial Post. All filed in line with the alphabet, all in neat date order. Just random copies, ranging back over the last few years. No complete sets. At the end of the row were some U.S. Treasury Department dispatches and a couple of issues of something calling itself World of Banking. A curious collection. Seemed very selective. Maybe they were especially heavy issues. Maybe Hubble had read them through when he couldn’t sleep.
I wasn’t going to have any trouble sleeping. I was on my way out of the den, off to find a bed to borrow, when something occurred to me. I stepped back to the desk and peered at the bookshelf again. Ran my finger along the row of magazines and journals. Checked the dates printed on the spines, under the pompous titles. Some of them were recent issues. The random sequence continued right up to the latest issue of a couple of them. More than a dozen were from this year. Fully a third of them were published after Hubble had left his job at the bank. After he had been let go. They were published for bankers, but by then Hubble hadn’t been a banker anymore. But he had still been ordering up these heavy professional journals. He had still been getting them. Still reading all this complicated stuff. Why?
I pulled out a couple of the periodicals. Looked at the covers. They were thick, glossy magazines. I held them in my fingers at the top and bottom of the spines. They fell open at the pages Hubble had consulted. I looked at those pages. Pulled out some more issues. Let them fall open. I sat down in Hubble’s leather chair. I sat there wrapped in his towel, reading. I read right through the shelf. From left to right, from beginning to end. All the periodicals. It took me an hour.
Then I started in on the books. I ran my finger along the dusty row. Stopped with a little shock when I spotted a couple of names I knew. Kelstein and Bartholomew. A big old volume. Bound in red leather. Their Senate subcommittee report. I pulled it out and started flicking through. It was an amazing publication. Kelstein had modestly described it as the anticounterfeiter’s bible. And it was. He’d been too modest. It was totally exhaustive. It was a painstaking history of every known forging technique. Copious examples and instances were taken from every racket ever discovered. I hefted the heavy volume onto my lap. Read for another solid hour.
At first I concentrated on paper problems. Kelstein had said that paper was the key. He and Bartholomew had provided a long appendix about paper. It expanded on what he’d told me face to face. The cotton and linen fibers, the chemical colorant, the introduction of the red and blue polymer threads. The paper was produced in Dalton, Massachusetts, by an outfit called Crane and Company. I nodded to myself. I’d heard of them. Seemed to me I’d bought some Christmas cards made by them. I remembered the thick heavy card and the creamy rag envelopes. I’d liked them. The company had been making currency stock for the Treasury since 1879. For over a century, it had been trucked down to Washington under heavy guard in armored cars. None had ever been stolen. Not a single sheet.
Then I flipped backward from the appendix and started looking at the main text. I piled Hubble’s little library on his desk. Trawled through it all again. Some things I read twice, three times. I kept diving back into the untidy sprawl of dense articles and reports. Checking, cross-referencing, trying to understand the arcane language. I kept going back to the big red Senate report. There were three paragraphs I read over and over again. The first was about an old counterfeiting ring in Bogotá, Colombia. The second was about a much earlier Lebanese operation. The Christian Phalangists had teamed up with some Armenian engravers during an old civil war. The third was some basic stuff about chemistry. Lots of complicated formulas, but there were a few words I recognized. I read the three paragraphs time and time again. I wandered through to the kitchen. Picked up Joe’s blank list. Stared at it for a long time. Wandered back to the dark quiet den and sat in a pool of light and thought and read halfway through the night.
IT DIDN’T PUT ME TO SLEEP. IT HAD EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE effect. It woke me up. It gave me a hell of a buzz. It left me shaking with shock and excitement. Because by the time I had finished, I knew exactly how they were getting their paper. I knew exactly where they were getting it from. I knew what had been in those air conditioner boxes last year. I didn’t need to go up to Atlanta and look. I knew. I knew what Kliner was stockpiling at his warehouse. I knew what all those trucks were bringing in every day. I knew what Joe’s heading had meant. E Unum Pluribus. I knew why he’d chosen that reversed motto. I knew everything, with twenty-four hours still to go. The whole thing, from beginning to end. From top to bottom. From the inside out. And it was one hell of a clever operation. Old Professor Kelstein had said the paper was unobtainable. But Kliner had proved him wrong. Kliner had found a way of obtaining it. A very simple way.
I jumped up from the desk and ran down to the basement. Wrenched open the dryer door and pulled my clothes out. Dressed hopping from foot to foot on the concrete floor. Left the towel where it fell. Ran back up to the kitchen. Loaded up my jacket with the things I was going to need. Ran outside, leaving the splintered door swinging. Ran over the gravel to the Bentley. Started it up and threaded it backward down the drive. Roared off down Beckman and squealed a left onto Main Street. Gunned it through the silent town and out beyond the diner. Howled another left onto the Warburton road and pushed the stately old car along as fast as I dared.
The Bentley’s headlights were dim. Twenty-year-old design. The night was patchy. Dawn was hours away and the last of the trailing storm clouds were scudding across the moon. The road was never quite straight. The camber was off and the surface was lumpy. And slick with storm water. The old car was sliding and wallowing. So I cut the speed back to a cruise. Figured it was smarter to take an extra ten minutes than to go plowing off into a field. I didn’t want to
join Joe. I didn’t want to be another Reacher brother who knew, but who was dead.
I passed the copse of trees. It was just a darker patch against the dark sky. Miles away, I could see the perimeter lights of the prison. They were blazing out over the night landscape. I cruised past. Then for miles I could see their glow in the mirror, behind me. Then I was over the bridge, through Franklin, out of Georgia, into Alabama. I rushed past the old roadhouse Roscoe and I had been in. The Pond. It was closed up and dark. Another mile, I was at the motel. I left the motor running and ducked into the office to rouse the night guy.
“You got a guest called Finlay here?” I asked him.
He rubbed his eyes and looked at the register.
“Eleven,” he said.
The whole place had that night look on it. Slowed down and silent and asleep. I found Finlay’s cabin. Number eleven. His police Chevy was parked up outside. I made a lot of noise banging on his door. Had to keep banging for a while. Then I heard an irritated groan. Couldn’t make out any words. I banged some more.
“Come on, Finlay,” I called.
“Who’s there?” I heard him shout.
“It’s Reacher,” I said. “Open the damn door.”
There was a pause. Then the door opened. Finlay was standing there. I’d woken him up. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt and boxer shorts. I was amazed. I realized I had expected him to be sleeping in his tweed suit. With the mole-skin vest.
“What the hell do you want?” he said.
“Something to show you,” I told him.
He stood yawning and blinking.
“What the hell time is it?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Five o’clock, six, maybe. Get dressed. We’re going somewhere.”
“Going where?” he said.
“Atlanta,” I said. “Something to show you.”
“What something?” he said. “Just tell me, can’t you?”
“Get dressed, Finlay,” I said again. “Got to go.”
He grunted, but he went to get dressed. Took him a while. Fifteen minutes, maybe. He disappeared into the bathroom. Went in there looking like a normal sort of a guy, just woken up. Came out looking like Finlay. Tweed suit and all.
“OK,” he said. “This better be damn good, Reacher.”
We went out into the night. I walked over to the car while he locked his cabin door. Then he joined me.
“You driving?” he said.
“Why?” I said. “You got a problem with that?”
He looked irritable as hell. Glared at the gleaming Bentley.
“Don’t like people driving me,” he said. “You want to let me drive?”
“I don’t care who drives,” I said. “Just get in the damn car, will you?”
He got in the driver’s side and I handed him the keys. I was happy enough to do that. I was very tired. He started the Bentley up and backed it out of the lot. Swung east. Settled in for the drive. He went fast. Faster than I had. He was a hell of a good driver.
“SO WHAT’S GOING ON?” HE SAID TO ME.
I looked across at him. I could see his eyes in the glow from the dash.
“I figured it out,” I said. “I know what it’s all about.”
He glanced back again.
“So are you going to tell me?” he said.
“Did you call Princeton?” I asked him.
He grunted and slapped the Bentley’s wheel in irritation.
“I was on the phone for an hour,” he said. “The guy knew a hell of a lot, but in the end he knew nothing at all.”
“What did he tell you?” I asked him.
“He gave me the whole thing,” he said. “He was a smart guy. History postgrad, working for Bartholomew. Turns out Bartholomew and the other guy, Kelstein, were the big noises in counterfeiting research. Joe had been using them for background.”
I nodded across at him.
“I got all that from Kelstein,” I said.
He glanced over again. Still irritable.
“So why are you asking me about it?” he said.
“I want your conclusions,” I told him. “I want to see where you got to.”
“We didn’t get to anywhere,” he said. “They all talked for a year and decided there was no way Kliner could be getting so much good paper.”
“That’s exactly what Kelstein said,” I told him. “But I figured it out.”
He glanced over at me again. Surprise on his face. In the far distance I could see the glow of the prison lights at Warburton.
“So tell me about it,” he said.
“Wake up and figure it out for yourself, Harvard guy,” I said.
He grunted again. Still irritable. We drove on. We hurtled into the pool of light spilling from the prison fence. Passed by the prison approach. Then the fierce yellow glare was behind us.
“So start me off with a clue, will you?” he said.
“I’ll give you two clues,” I said. “The heading Joe used on his list. E Unum Pluribus. And then think about what’s unique about American currency.”
He nodded. Thought about it. Drummed his long fingers on the wheel.
“E Unum Pluribus,” he said. “It’s a reversal of the U.S. motto. So we can assume it means out of one comes many, right?”
“Correct,” I said. “And what’s unique about American banknotes, compared to any other country in the world?”
He thought about it. He was thinking about something so familiar he wasn’t spotting it. We drove on. Shot past the stand of trees on the left. Up ahead, a faint glimmer of dawn in the east.
“What?” he said.
“I’ve lived all over the world,” I said. “Six continents, if you count a brief spell in an air force weather hut in Antarctica. Dozens of countries. I’ve had lots of different sorts of paper money in my pocket. Yen, deutschmarks, pounds, lire, pesos, wons, francs, shekels, rupees. Now I’ve got dollars. What do I notice?”
Finlay shrugged.
“What?” he said.
“Dollars are all the same size,” I said. “Fifties, hundreds, tens, twenties, fives and ones. All the same size. No other country I’ve seen does that. Anywhere else, the high-value notes are bigger than the small-value notes. There’s a progression, right? Anywhere else, the one is a small bill, the five is bigger, the ten is bigger and so on. The biggest value bills are usually great big sheets of paper. But American dollars are all the same size. The hundred-dollar bill is the same size as the one-dollar bill.”
“So?” he asked.
“So where are they getting their paper from?” I asked him.
I waited. He glanced out of his window. Away from me. He wasn’t getting it and that was irritating him.
“They’re buying it,” I said. “They’re buying the paper for a buck a sheet.”
He sighed and gave me a look.
“They’re not buying it, for God’s sake,” he said. “Bartholomew’s guy made that clear. It’s manufactured up in Dalton and the whole operation is as tight as a fish’s asshole. They haven’t lost a single sheet in a hundred and twenty years. Nobody’s selling it off on the side, Reacher.”
“Wrong, Finlay,” I said. “It’s for sale on the open market.”
He grunted again. We drove on. Came to the turn onto the county road. Finlay slowed and swung left. Headed north toward the highway. Now the glimmer of dawn was on our right. It was getting stronger.
“They’re scouring the country for one-dollar bills,” I said. “That was the role Hubble took over a year and a half ago. That used to be his job at the bank, cash management. He knew how to get hold of cash. So he arranged to obtain one-dollar bills from banks, malls, retail chains, supermarkets, racetracks, casinos, anywhere he could. It was a big job. They needed a lot of them. They’re using bank checks and wire transfers and bogus hundreds and they’re buying in genuine one-dollar bills from all over the U.S. About a ton a week.”
Finlay stared across at me. Nodded. He was beginning to understand.
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br /> “A ton a week?” he said. “How many is that?”
“A ton in singles is a million dollars,” I said. “They need forty tons a year. Forty million dollars in singles.”
“Go on,” he said.
“The trucks bring them down to Margrave,” I said. “From wherever Hubble sourced them. They come in to the warehouse.”
Finlay nodded. He was catching on. He could see it.
“Then they got shipped out again in the air conditioner cartons,” he said.
“Correct,” I said. “Until a year ago. Until the Coast Guard stopped them. Nice new fresh boxes, probably ordered from some cardboard box factory two thousand miles away. They packed them up, sealed them with tape, shipped them out. But they used to count them first, before shipping them.”
He nodded again.
“To keep the books straight,” he said. “But how the hell do you count a ton of dollar bills a week?”
“They weighed them,” I said. “Every time they filled a box, they stuck it on a scale and weighed it. With singles, an ounce is worth thirty bucks. A pound is worth four hundred and eighty. I read about all that last night. They weighed it, they calculated the value, then they wrote the amount on the side of the box.”
“How do you know?” he said.
“The serial numbers,” I said. “Showed how much money was in the box.”
Finlay smiled a rueful smile.
“OK,” he said. “Then the boxes went to Jacksonville Beach, right?”
I nodded.
“Got put on a boat,” I said. “Got taken down to Venezuela.”
Then we fell silent. We were approaching the warehouse complex up at the top of the old county road. It loomed up on our left like the center of our universe. The metal siding reflected the pale dawn. Finlay slowed. We looked over at the place. Our heads swiveled around as we drove past. Then we swung up the ramp onto the highway. Headed north for Atlanta. Finlay mashed the pedal and the stately old car hummed along faster.