by Lee Child
Reacher kept on the surface streets and stayed off the freeway. He had noticed that the freeways were thick with cops at night, and he hadn’t seen any anywhere else. So he erred on the side of caution. He got lost near Dodger Stadium and ended up driving an aimless circle that took him right past the LA Police Academy. He stopped in Echo Park and checked in with the others by phone. They were nearly home, streaming west at circumspect speeds like bombers returning from a night raid.
They regrouped in O’Donnell’s room dead-on three o’clock in the morning. The captured paperwork was laid out on the bed in three neat piles. Reacher unrolled Swan’s stuff from his pocket and added it to the line. It wasn’t very interesting. Most of it was a memorandum about future overtime requirements for his secretarial staff. The rest of it was a justification for the overtime they had already worked.
O’Donnell’s collection wasn’t very interesting either, but it was instructive in a negative way. It proved that the glass cube was purely an administrative center. It had been relatively unsecured because it contained very little worth stealing. Some minor design work happened there, and some component sourcing, but most of the square footage was given over to management functions. Personnel stuff, corporate finance stuff, routine transport, and maintenance and bureaucracy. Nothing inherently valuable.
Which made it all the more important to find the plant location.
Which was where Dixon’s stuff made all the difference. She had dug through the wreckage of the reception area and crawled under the crashed Chrysler and in about fifty seconds flat she had come up with solid gold. In the shattered remains of a locked drawer she had found New Age’s internal phone directory. Now it was right there on the bed, a thick wad of loose-leaf pages punched into a white three-ring binder, a little battered and covered in dust. The cover was printed with New Age’s corporate logo and most of the pages were printed with names that meant nothing, with matching four-digit telephone extensions. But right at the front of the book was a block diagram detailing the company’s various divisions. Names were printed in boxes, and lines connected the boxes downward through all the various hierarchies. The Security Division was headed by a guy called Allen Lamaison. His number two had been Tony Swan. Below Swan two lines led to two other guys, and below them five more lines fanned out to five more guys, one of which had the name Saropian, and who was as dead as Tony Swan, in a Vegas hotel foundation. A total staff of nine, two down, seven survivors.
“Turn to the back,” Dixon said.
The last section had account numbers for FedEx and UPS and DHL. Plus full street addresses and landline phone numbers for two of New Age’s operations, which was what courier services needed. The East LA glass cube, the contracting office up in Colorado.
And then, bizarrely, a third address, with a note printed in bold and underlined: No deliveries to this location.
The third address was for the electronics manufacturing plant.
It was in Highland Park, halfway between Glendale and South Pasadena. Six and a half miles north and east of downtown, nine miles east of where they were standing.
Close enough to taste.
“Now turn back a few pages,” Dixon said.
Reacher leafed backward. There was a whole section showing remote telephone extensions out there in the manufacturing plant.
“Check under P,” Dixon said.
The P section started with a guy called Pascoe and finished with a guy called Purcell. Halfway through the list was Pilot’s office.
Dixon said, “We found the helicopter.”
Reacher nodded. Then he smiled at her. Pictured her running in with her flashlight, running out fifty seconds later covered in dust. His old team. He could send them to Atlanta and they would come back with the Coke recipe.
Neagley had personnel files on the whole Security Division. Nine green file folders. One was Saropian’s, one was Tony Swan’s. Reacher didn’t look at either of those. No point. He started with the top boy, Allen Lamaison. There was a Polaroid photograph clipped to the first sheet inside. Lamaison was a bulky thick-necked man with dark blank eyes and a mouth too small for his jaw. His personal information was on the next sheet and showed he had done twenty years inside the LAPD, the last twelve in Robbery-Homicide. He was forty-nine years old.
Next up were the two guys sharing the third spot in the hierarchy. The first of them was called Lennox. Forty-one years old, ex-LAPD, gray buzz cut, heavy build, meaty red face.
The second was the guy in the raincoat. His name was Parker. Forty-two years old, ex-LAPD, tall, slim, a pale hard face disfigured by a broken nose.
“They’re all ex-LAPD,” Neagley said. “According to the data, they all quit around the same time.”
“After a scandal?”
“There are always scandals. It’s statistically difficult to quit the LAPD any other way.”
“Could your guy in Chicago get their histories?”
Neagley shrugged. “We might be able to get into their computer. And we know some people. We might get some word of mouth.”
“What was on Berenson’s office floor?”
“A new Oriental rug. Persian style, but almost certainly a copy from Pakistan.”
Reacher nodded. “Swan’s place, too. They must have done the whole executive floor.”
Neagley dialed her cell for the call to her Chicago guy’s voice mail and Reacher put Parker’s details on one side and checked the photographs of the four remaining foot soldiers. Then he closed their files and butted them together into a neat stack and piled it on top of Parker’s jacket, like a category.
“I saw these five tonight,” he said.
“What were they like?” O’Donnell asked.
“Lousy. Really slow and stupid.”
“Where were the other two?”
“Highland Park, presumably. That’s where the good stuff is.”
O’Donnell slid the five separated files toward him and asked, “How did we lose four guys to the Keystone Kops?”
“I don’t know,” Reacher said.
65
Eventually, as he knew he would, Reacher opened Tony Swan’s New Age personnel file. He didn’t get past the Polaroid photograph. It was a year old and not remotely close to studio quality but it was much clearer than Curtis Mauney’s video surveillance still. Ten years after the army Swan’s hair had been shorter than when he was in. Back then the craze for shaved heads had already started among enlisted men but hadn’t spread upward to officers. Swan had worn a regular style, parted and brushed. But over the years it must have thinned and he had changed to an all-over half-inch Caesar. In the army it had been a chestnut brown. Now it was a dusty gray. His eyes were pouched and he had grown balls of fat and muscle at the hinges of his jaw. His neck was wider than ever. Reacher was amazed that anyone made shirts with collars that size. Like automobile tires.
“What next?” Dixon asked, in the silence. Reacher knew it wasn’t a genuine inquiry. She was just trying to stop him reading. Trying to spare his feelings. He closed the file. Dropped it on the bed well away from the other files, in a category all its own. Swan deserved better than to be associated with his recent colleagues, even on paper.
“Who knew, and who flew,” Reacher said. “That’s what we need. Anyone else can live a little longer.”
“When will we know?”
“Later today. You and Dave can go scope out Highland Park. Neagley and I are going back to East LA. In an hour. So take a nap, and make it count.”
Reacher and Neagley left the motel at five in the morning, in separate Hondas, driving one-handed and talking to each other on the phone like commuters everywhere. Reacher said he guessed that when the alarm call came in, Lamaison and Lennox had headed straight for Highland Park. Standard emergency protocol, he figured, because Highland Park was the more sensitive location. The attack in East LA might have been nothing more than a decoy. But an uneventful night would allay those fears and they would head to the scene of the real crime
around dawn. They would declare the glass cube unusable for normal operations and give everyone the day off. Except for department heads, who would be called in to inventory the damage and list what was missing.
Neagley agreed with his analysis. And she grasped the next part of the plan without having to ask, which was one of the reasons why Reacher liked her so much.
They parked a hundred yards apart on different streets, hiding in plain sight. The sun was over the horizon and the dawn was gray. Reacher was fifty yards from New Age’s building and could see his car reflected in the mirror glass, tiny and distant and anonymous, one of hundreds dumped all around. There was a flatbed truck backed up to the wrecked reception area. A steel cable snaked inside into the gloom. The guy called Parker was still there in his raincoat. He was directing operations. He had one foot soldier with him. Reacher guessed the other three had been sent up to Highland Park to relieve Lamaison and Lennox.
The flatbed’s cable jerked and tightened and started hauling. The blue Chrysler came out of the lobby backward, a lot slower than it had gone in. It had scars on the paint and some front-end damage. The windshield was starred and a little concave. But overall the car was in excellent shape. As subtle as a hammer, as vulnerable as a hammer. It came to rest on the flatbed and the driver strapped the wheels down and drove it away. As soon as it was out of the lot its undamaged twin drove in. Another blue 300C, fast and confident. It stopped just inside and Allen Lamaison climbed out to inspect the smashed gate.
Reacher recognized him instantly from his file photograph. In the flesh he was about six feet tall and could have been two hundred and forty pounds. Big shoulders, small hips, thin legs. He looked fast and agile. He was dressed in a gray suit with a white shirt and a red necktie. He was holding the necktie flat against his chest with one hand, even though the weather wasn’t windy. He took a brief look at the gate and climbed back in his car and drove on through the lot. He got out again just short of the shattered doors and Parker came over in his raincoat and they started talking.
Just to be sure, Reacher took out the phone he had brought back from Vegas and redialed. Fifty yards away Lamaison’s hand went straight to his pocket and came out with a phone. He glanced at the caller ID on the screen and froze.
Got you, Reacher thought.
He wasn’t expecting an answer. But Lamaison picked up. He flicked the phone open and brought it up to his face and said, “What?”
“How’s your day going?” Reacher asked.
“It only just started,” Lamaison said.
“How was your night?”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Plenty of folks have tried,” Reacher said. “I’m still here. They aren’t.”
“Where are you?”
“We got out of town. Safer that way. But we’ll be back. Maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe next year. You better get used to looking over your shoulder. That’s something you’re going to be doing a lot of.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Reacher said, and clicked off. He saw Lamaison stare at his phone, and then dial a number. Not a call back. Reacher waited, but his phone stayed silent, and Lamaison started talking, evidently to someone else.
Ten minutes later Lennox showed up in another blue 300C. Black suit, gray buzz cut, heavy build, meaty red face. The other number three, Swan’s junior, Parker’s equal. He was carrying a cardboard tray of coffee and disappeared into the building. Fifty minutes after that Margaret Berenson showed up. The dragon lady. Human Resources. Seven o’clock in the morning. She was in a mid-sized silver Toyota. She made a right off the roadway and drove through the lot and parked neatly in a slot close to the door. Then she picked her way inside through the wreckage. Lamaison came out briefly and dispatched the remaining foot soldier to the gate, for sentry duty. Parker made a second line of defense at the door. He was still in his raincoat. Two more managers showed up. Probably financial and the building super, Reacher figured. The sentry waved them through the absent gate and Parker checked them in at the door. Then some kind of a CEO showed up. An old guy, a Jaguar sedan, deference at the gate, a ramrod posture from Parker. The old guy conferred with Parker through the Jaguar’s window and went away again. Clearly he had a hands-off management style.
Then the scene went quiet, and it stayed quiet for more than two hours.
Halfway through the wait Dixon called in from Highland Park. She and O’Donnell had been on station since before six in the morning. They had seen the three foot soldiers show up. They had seen Lamaison and Lennox leave. They had seen workers show up. They had driven all around the plant on a two-block radius, for a fuller picture.
“It’s the real deal,” Dixon said. “Multiple buildings, serious fence, excellent security. And it’s got a helipad out back. With a helicopter on it. A white Bell 222.”
At half past nine in the morning the dragon lady left. She picked her way through the mess and stood on the shallow step outside the reception area for a moment and then headed back toward her Toyota. Reacher’s cell phone rang. The Radio Shack pay-as-you-go, not the Vegas guy’s. It was Neagley.
“Both of us go?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Reacher said. “You close, me deep. Time to rock and roll.”
He pulled his gloves on and started his Honda at the same time that Berenson started her Toyota. She had made a right coming in, and therefore she would make a left going out. Reacher eased off the curb and drove twenty yards and U-turned in the mouth of the next side street. He was stiff from sitting still so long. He came back slowly, along New Age’s fence. Berenson was hustling through the lot. A block away he could see Neagley’s Honda, riding low, trailing a cloud of white vapor. Berenson reached the wrecked gate and swept through without pausing. Made the left. Neagley made a parallel left and fell in twenty yards behind her. Reacher slowed and waited and then made his own turn and tucked in about seventy yards behind Neagley and ninety behind Berenson.
66
The Prelude was a low-slung coupe and therefore Reacher didn’t have the best angle in the world, but most of the time he got a decent view of the silver Toyota up ahead. Berenson was driving well under the speed limit. Maybe she had points on her license. Or things on her mind. Or maybe the car-crash scars were more vivid in her memory than they were on her face. She made a right onto a road called Huntington Drive, which Reacher was pretty sure had been a part of the old Route 66. She headed north and east on it. Reacher started singing to himself, about getting his kicks. Then he stopped. Berenson was slowing and her turn signal was flashing. She was getting ready to make a left. She was heading for South Pasadena.
His phone rang. Neagley.
“I’ve been behind her too long,” she said. “I’m taking three sides of the next block. You move up for a spell.”
He kept the line open and accelerated. Berenson had turned into a road called Van Horne Avenue. He turned into it about fifty yards behind her. He couldn’t see her. The road curved too much. He accelerated again and eased off and came around a final curve and spotted her about forty yards ahead. He cruised on and in his mirror he saw Neagley swing back on the road behind him.
Monterey Hills gave way to South Pasadena and at the municipal line the road changed its name to Via Del Rey. A pretty name, and a pretty place. The California dream. Low hills, curving streets, trees, perpetual spring, perpetual blossom. Reacher had grown up on grim military bases in Europe and the Pacific and people had given him picture books to show him what home was all about. Most of the pictures had looked exactly like South Pasadena.
Berenson made a left and then a right and pulled into a quiet residential cul-de-sac. Reacher glimpsed small smug houses basking in the morning sun. He didn’t follow Berenson. The slammed Honda was pretty anonymous in most of LA, but not in a street like that. He braked and came to a stop thirty yards farther on. Neagley pulled in behind him.
“Now?” she asked, on the phone.
There were two main ways to engineer a visit with someone returning to their home. Either you let them settle and then gave them a compelling reason why they should let you in later, or you followed hard on their heels and rushed them while they still had their keys out or their door open.
“Now,” Reacher said.
They slid out and locked up and ran. Safe enough. A lone man running could look suspicious. A lone woman rarely did. A man and a woman running together were usually taken as jogging buddies, or a couple just out having fun.
They made it into the cul-de-sac and saw nothing at first. There was a rise, and then a curve. They made it through the curve in time to see a garage door opening next to a house about a third of the way down the street, on the right. Berenson’s silver Toyota was waiting on a blacktop driveway. The house was small and neat. Faced with brick. Painted trim. The front yard was full of rocks and gravel and all kinds of colorful blooms. There was a basketball hoop over the garage. The rising door was letting in enough light to show a tangle of kid stuff stacked against a wall inside. A bike, a skateboard, a Little League bat, knee pads, helmets, gloves.
The Toyota’s brake lights went off and it crept forward. Neagley sprinted. She was much faster than Reacher. She made it inside the garage just as the door started back down. Reacher arrived about ten seconds after her and used his foot to trip the safety mechanism. He waited until the door rose again to waist height and then he ducked under it and stepped inside.
Margaret Berenson was already out of her car. Neagley had one gloved hand in her hair and the other clamped around both of her wrists from behind. Berenson was struggling, but not much. She stopped altogether after Neagley forced her face down and tapped it twice against the Toyota’s hood. At that point she went limp and started yelling. She stopped yelling exactly a second later after Neagley straightened her up again and turned her toward Reacher and Reacher popped her in the solar plexus, once, gently, just enough to drive the air out of her lungs.