by Jude Hardin
Feldman had agreed to pay Decker his normal fee for this kind of thing, but that was peanuts compared to the bounty that was out on Wahlman. Big bucks, and Decker wanted all of it. Which meant that he would have to deliver Wahlman to the NOPD himself. Which could be quite a problem with a guy that big, a guy with a history of violent confrontations, a guy determined to evade capture at all costs.
But that was okay.
Because, as of late last night, Wahlman’s wanted status had been changed. He was now wanted dead or alive, and Decker had a nice big car with a nice big trunk.
He sat in the parking lot and waited.
10
The gun must have been strapped between the seat and the door. Completely out of sight from the passenger side. No way for Wahlman to have seen it when he’d climbed into the pickup. It was a .357 revolver. Wahlman had owned one similar to it when he was in the Navy. Bright stainless steel finish, rubber grips. Wahlman could see the fat tips of the magnum rounds through the holes in the cylinder.
“Where are you taking me?” Wahlman said.
“You’ll see,” Boyfriend said.
He took a left onto a gravel road that gradually turned to dirt after a quarter mile or so, and then he made a series of disorienting turns through the woods, finally stopping at the edge of a clearing, about fifty yards from a large wooden barn. Wahlman had been waiting for a chance to lunge over and twist the gun out of his hand, but the chance had never come. Boyfriend had kept the pistol aimed at Wahlman’s core the entire time. One little hiccup, and a hole the size of a quarter would be bored through Wahlman’s left bicep and into his chest. Deep into his left lung, for sure, and maybe all the way into his pericardial cavity. It was highly unlikely that he would survive such a wound, much less be able to fend off a second shot. So he hadn’t made a move. Not yet. He was waiting for a mistake, or some kind of diversion. Anything that might give him an opening.
“Now what?” Wahlman said, staring straight ahead through the windshield, toward the barn.
“You’ll see,” Boyfriend said.
“You and your buddy tried to steal that piano, didn’t you?”
“Shut up.”
“Your boots gave you away. They were wet, up to the ankles, just like mine. I figured it was probably a coincidence. But I figured wrong, didn’t I?”
“I guess you think you’re pretty smart,” Boyfriend said. “But that kind of reasoning can work both ways. My girlfriend told me that you were staring at my boots when I left the restaurant yesterday. Then she told me that your boots looked the same as mine. Wet up to the ankles. Two plus two equals four. You know? I talked to a friend later on. Brad Tingly. He’s a cop. He confirmed my suspicions. You should have minded your own business. Then you wouldn’t be—”
“I was a cop too,” Wahlman said. “United States Navy, Master-At-Arms. It’s not my nature to mind my own business, especially when I see something that’s obviously wrong. Like a vacant house with the back door standing open.”
“You should have kept walking.”
Wahlman couldn’t argue with that. He’d gotten himself into something that was going to be very difficult to get out of, all for what appeared to be some sort of theft ring.
“What’s in the barn?” he said. “You and your buddy have a nice little business going here, don’t you?”
“Open the door and climb out of the truck and get on the ground,” Boyfriend said. “Facedown, hands behind your head. Slow and easy, if you want to keep breathing.”
Wahlman didn’t move.
“Why a piano?” he said. “And why right there in Reality, where you live? Seems pretty stupid to me. Almost like you were trying to get caught.”
“I don’t want to get blood all over my interior, but I’ll shoot you where you’re sitting if I have to. Out of the truck. Now.”
“Was it your idea, or your buddy’s idea? A Baby grand piano. I’ve run across some dumbass criminals in my day, but that pretty much takes the cake. I’ve been trying to figure out why in the world anyone would—”
“Now!” Boyfriend shouted.
He leaned over and jammed the barrel of the pistol into Wahlman’s ribcage.
Which presented a potential window of opportunity.
Boyfriend was off balance now. Mentally, and physically. Which, from Wahlman’s perspective, could have ended up being a very good thing, or a very bad thing. Wahlman figured he had about a fifty percent chance of successfully leaning forward and avoiding the brunt of the initial blast, perhaps only being grazed by the bullet as it whizzed by or scorched by the muzzle flash as the powder exploded out of the barrel. Then he could quickly grab the gun and break Boyfriend’s arm in three or four places—and maybe crush a few facial bones while he was at it—and leave him there in the clearing writhing on the ground, hoping someone would show up to take him to the hospital.
But that wasn’t what happened. Not exactly.
Just as Wahlman was about to make his move, a second pickup truck sped into the clearing, whipping around 180 degrees on the soft earth, stopping nose-to-nose with Boyfriend’s truck, just a few feet away, a few feet closer to the barn.
A man climbed out of the truck. It was the guy Boyfriend had been hanging out with at the diner yesterday. Boyfriend’s partner in crime, the way Wahlman had it figured. He was wearing shorts and sneakers and a muscle shirt and a ball cap backwards. He took a few steps toward Boyfriend’s truck, opened the passenger side door and grabbed Wahlman by the arm.
Which was a stupid thing to do, considering that the barrel of Boyfriend’s revolver was still jammed against Wahlman’s ribcage.
“Get out,” Partner In Crime said.
Wahlman didn’t say anything.
And he didn’t get out of the truck.
In a single swift and precise motion, he swung his elbow like a pendulum, knocking the barrel of the gun toward the backrest of the bucket seat, managing to lean forward, toward the dashboard, a split second before Boyfriend pulled the trigger.
There was an earsplitting blast and a simultaneous shower of blood and bone and brain tissue as the top of Partner In Crime’s head exploded against the blueness of the late-spring Missouri sky.
Wahlman yanked the hot revolver from Boyfriend’s hand and clouted him in the forehead with it and Boyfriend’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed sideways against the driver side door. His face immediately went pale, as if someone had swiped it with a brush dipped in grayish-white paint.
Wahlman leaned over and checked his pulse. It was weak and rapid and there was a rattle in his throat every time he tried to take a breath and it was doubtful that he would live much longer, with or without medical attention.
He probably wasn’t going to make it, no matter what, but it wasn’t in Wahlman’s nature to just sit there and do nothing. He used the cell phone in Boyfriend’s pocket to call 911. He made the call, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want his voice to be on the recording. He left the line open and set the phone on the center console. It would only take a couple of minutes for the operator to pinpoint the signal, and then she could send help. Under the circumstances, Wahlman felt that it was the best he could do.
Mr. Conscientious. He just hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite him on the ass.
He grabbed the revolver and maneuvered his way out of the truck, careful not to step in the puddle of goo that had been a living breathing human being just a few seconds previously.
Partner In Crime’s truck was still running.
And it had a full tank of gas.
Wahlman climbed in and put it in gear and headed back through the woods, toward the highway. He figured he still might be able to make his appointment in Junction City, if he hurried.
11
The hacker had wanted to meet at a certain park, at a certain time, on a certain bench. Old school. Like spies in classic movies did it sometimes. Which was fine with Wahlman. Whatever worked. Whatever would lead him to getting the information he ne
eded.
He abandoned the pickup truck a few blocks from the park and walked the rest of the way and found the bench. It was 1:43 in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day. Warm, but not too humid. Birds were chirping and squirrels were scurrying and little kids were swinging on the swings and sliding on the slides and climbing on the jungle gyms.
Wahlman waited.
He took a deep breath. His stomach was churning, because he was getting ready to do something that could potentially get him into deeper trouble than he was already in. He was getting ready to commission an act of espionage. Which, in essence, would make him a conspirator to an act of espionage. Which would make him eligible for the death penalty, if anything went wrong.
But apparently someone in the army had already sentenced him to die anyway. Just because of who he was. Just because he was an exact genetic duplicate of a man named Jack Reacher. A military policeman whose DNA had been extracted from blood samples taken over a hundred years ago.
There had been two clones produced from those samples. Rock Wahlman, and a man named Darrell Renfro. The army had been conducting some sort of experiment, but for some reason the experiment had come to a screeching halt while Wahlman and Renfro were still toddlers. They’d been sent to different orphanages in different states. Now, almost forty years later, the army was trying to eliminate any shred of evidence that the experiment had ever taken place. Renfro had been murdered already, and Wahlman knew that he was next.
He just didn’t know why.
And he needed to know why. He needed to expose the forces behind what was happening. It was the only way that he was going to be able to survive. If it meant committing what would technically amount to a capital offense, then so be it. If it meant committing a hundred such crimes, then so be it. He was all in. He was ready to go the distance. The only other real choice was to lie down and die. And that just wasn’t going to happen. There was something in his DNA that would never allow that to happen. Not as long as he still had the strength to put up a fight.
At exactly two o’clock, a man carrying a brown leather briefcase walked up and sat on the wooden park bench, leaving a distance of approximately two feet between himself and Wahlman.
“Do you have a cigarette?” the man said.
The preselected code question.
Wahlman was still rattled from the ordeal with Boyfriend and Partner In Crime, and he couldn’t remember if he was supposed to say yes or no. A sense of panic washed over him. He was going to blow the whole deal right off the bat. He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. He looked at the man and shrugged.
Then it came to him.
“I don’t smoke,” he said. “It’s bad for your health.”
The man breathed a sigh of relief. “You had me worried there for a second,” he said.
“Sorry,” Wahlman said. “I had kind of a rough time getting here. So how is this going to work?”
“The information you asked for is in the briefcase.”
“The information on Colonel Dorland? You have it already?”
“Yes. I have his real name, a copy of his service record, and an outline of his current assignment. And a map that shows the exact location of his current personal quarters and the exact location of the unit he’s currently commanding.”
Wahlman unzipped his jacket and pulled an envelope out of the inner pocket. The envelope contained exactly ten thousand dollars in cash, given to Wahlman by Kasey’s parents. Which, in essence, made them conspirators too. Not that anyone would ever find out about their involvement. The only way anyone would ever find out was if Wahlman turned, and that wasn’t going to happen.
He set the envelope on the bench, approximately halfway between where he was sitting and where the hacker was sitting.
“Take it and walk away,” Wahlman said. “Leave the briefcase here.”
The hacker didn’t move.
“I’m going to need more than that,” he said. “I’m going to need twenty.”
“You said ten.”
“I’m going to need twenty.”
Wahlman clenched his teeth. He felt like reaching over and grabbing the hacker by the throat.
“What’s stopping me from caving your skull in with my bare hands and taking the briefcase and keeping the money?” he said.
“This,” the hacker said, pulling his right hand out of his pocket and revealing a stainless steel box about the size of a deck of cards. “There’s a button on the box. I’m pressing it with my thumb right now. If I choose to take my thumb off the button, or if something happens that causes my thumb to be taken off the button, the briefcase will explode.”
Wahlman squinted toward the little box. He figured the hacker was bluffing. Why risk your own life for a measly twenty grand? Or for any amount of money, for that matter. Wahlman figured he was bluffing, but there was no way to know for sure. Which meant that he was going to have to play ball with this guy.
“How do I know the briefcase really contains the information you said it contains?” Wahlman said.
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“You lied about the amount of money it was going to cost me. How do I know you’re not lying about everything else? You’re going to have to give me something. Some kind of proof that you really—”
“Earlier this year, Dorland’s unit abruptly abandoned a secret complex that had been set up in the Mojave Desert,” the hacker said.
Which was true.
Wahlman knew it was true, because he’d gone into the secret complex and had looked around, after Dorland and his intelligence unit had bugged out. So maybe the hacker was legit after all. And maybe the briefcase really was rigged with explosives. It seemed odd that the hacker would be willing to blow himself up over something like this, but maybe he really needed the cash. Maybe it was for a gambling debt, or a medical procedure, or to keep his house from going into foreclosure. Wahlman supposed there were all kinds of events that might have caused the hacker to become desperate enough to risk being blown to smithereens.
“That’s all the money I have,” Wahlman said, gesturing toward the envelope. “I’ll have to owe you the rest.”
The hacker laughed. “This isn’t the kind of thing you can pay for with an installment plan,” he said. “Give me the money today, or the deal’s off.”
“How can I give you what I don’t have?”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. There’s a coffee shop at the corner of First and Main. It’s only a few blocks from here. There’s one of those payday loan places on the way. Maybe they can help you out. Meet me at the coffee shop in one hour. If you’re not there with the money, you’ll never see me again.”
The hacker put his hand back in his pocket, and then he got up and walked away.
12
Wahlman put the envelope back in his pocket and zipped his jacket. He stayed there on the bench, gazing out toward the playground and wondering how he was going to come up with another ten thousand dollars in less than an hour. He thought about trying to sell the pickup truck he’d driven to Junction City. It was a nice truck. It was probably worth forty or fifty grand. Wahlman had noticed a pool hall not far from the park. He could go in there and ask around, maybe find a dirty pawnbroker who would look the other way on the paperwork.
But all that would take time, something Wahlman was extremely short of at the moment. So there was really only one way to get the money.
Wahlman got up and started walking west, toward First Street. It was uphill from the park and the day had gotten warmer and there wasn’t much of a breeze and he could feel the sweat trickling down his back. He stopped in front of the payday loan place the hacker had mentioned. There was a sign taped to the window that said they had a money wiring service there as well.
Wahlman thought about it for a few more seconds, and then he pulled out his cell phone and punched in Kasey’s number. She answered on the third ring.
“I need ten thousand dollars,” Wahlman said.
&nb
sp; “Unbelievable,” Kasey said. “You call me on the phone, and those are the first words out of your mouth?”
“Sorry. I need it in a hurry. The man I met with a while ago has the information I need. This whole ordeal could be over in a matter of days. But I have to have the money.”
“I thought Daddy already gave you what you needed for that.”
“The guy I met with wants more. He wants twice the amount we originally agreed on. What can I do? I have to pay him, or he’s going to disappear on me. Then I’ll be back to square one.”
“How do you know this guy really has the—”
“I talked to him. He knows things. I’m pretty sure he has the information I need to get to the bottom of all this. He knows about Dorland. He has a copy of his service record, and he knows where he is. And he knows his real name.”
There was a long pause. Wahlman could hear whispers in the background and paper shuffling.
“Do you have a place in mind where we can wire you the money?” Kasey said.
“Yes. I’m standing outside a place right now.”
“Daddy says he will do it, but that this is the last time. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Another long pause.
“There are some things I need to talk to you about,” Kasey said.
“What things?” Wahlman said.
“You said you’re in a hurry. Go ahead and do what you need to do. We can talk later.”
She hung up.
Somewhat perplexed by Kasey’s attitude, but having no time to dwell on it right now, Wahlman walked into the payday loan place. A few minutes later, he added another ten thousand dollars to the envelope in his pocket, and then he headed toward the coffee shop.
13
As it turned out, Wahlman was almost twenty minutes early. The hacker wasn’t there yet.
The coffee shop was not busy. Wahlman and the barista were the only people in there at the moment, and the barista behaved as though she would rather be almost anywhere else. No smile, no friendly chitchat. Just going through the motions. Maybe she wasn’t always like that, Wahlman thought. Maybe she was just having a bad day. Maybe her boyfriend had broken up with her five minutes ago. No telling. Wahlman ordered a cup of coffee and sat at a table by the front window.