by Jude Hardin
Colt didn’t recognize the operative standing at his door, but he recognized the handgun she was pointing at him. It was a Smith and Wesson .40 caliber semi-automatic. Four-inch barrel, eleven-round magazine. It was a nice compact carry weapon capable of boring a nice fat hole into human flesh.
“What are you going to do, shoot me?” Colt said. “I got mad and threw a cup of coffee. Not a capital offense, last I heard.”
“I have instructions to hold you here until Mr. Valinger comes.”
“What’s your name?”
“Not important.”
She reminded Colt of Diana Dawkins, the operative who’d recruited him into The Circle a couple of years ago. Not her looks, but her attitude and the way she carried herself. He knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger if she needed to.
Colt hadn’t heard anything from or about Diana since they worked together on the Sycamore Bluff assignment. They narrowly escaped with their lives on that deal. They had been through a lot together. He considered Diana a friend, and he wondered where she was and how she was doing.
“I’m going to open the door now,” he said. “Will you be joining me?”
“Not necessary.”
Colt figured as much. The dorm rooms didn’t have any windows, so it wasn’t like he was going to escape or anything. He pressed his thumb against the electronic scanner, popped the lock and walked inside and shut the door behind him.
The entire space was about a hundred square feet. There was a twin size bed and a small desk with a laptop and a private bathroom and a short little refrigerator and a microwave and a television. Colt plunked a couple of ice cubes into a glass, twisted the cap off his jug of Old Fitzgerald and poured himself a double. He sat on the bed and clicked on the television and watched a Seinfeld rerun. His nerves had settled considerably by the time someone started banging on his door.
It was Valinger.
Colt let him in.
“Sorry about what happened down there at the soundstage,” Colt said. “I lost my temper, and there’s no excuse for it. All I can say is that it won’t happen again.”
“I know you want to see your wife and daughter, Mr. Colt. I understand that completely. But we do expect our operatives to behave professionally at all times. I was forced to notify The Director about your outburst, and any sort of punishment will be administered by him. In the meantime, he thinks it would be prudent to send a partner along with you on the Jack Reacher assignment.”
“I can handle myself, Kurt. I don’t need a babysitter.”
Colt didn’t understand why Valinger had been forced to contact The Director about a broken coffee cup. Talk about overreacting. Like running and telling the principal in sixth grade when someone shot you with a spitball. The men and women at the top had more important things to think about. Colt had lost his cool for a minute. It was no big deal.
Valinger walked over to the desk and sat down on the chair.
“Got any more of that whiskey?” he said.
Colt fixed Valinger a drink, poured himself another one while he was at it. The bottle was almost empty.
“When you spoke with The Director, did you happen to mention the cause of my anger? That I want to see Juliet and Brittney?”
“I did. He said he would look into it.”
“Thanks. Is the young lady with the gun still outside my door?”
“No. I sent her on her way. I just needed to make sure you didn’t leave the complex before I talked to you. I’m not sure you understand the gravity of the Jack Reacher situation, what he’s capable of if he sets his mind to it.”
“You said he was ex-military, so I assume he’s had some training.”
“A lot. And he’s learned some things on his own through the years. At the briefing tomorrow morning, you will be given a condensed version of his files, about five hundred pages of things you’ll need to know to run the case. My advice is to study those pages carefully. In most businesses knowledge is power. In ours it can mean the difference between living and dying.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Colt said. “Where’s Reacher now?”
“In Virginia, not far from DC. Little town called Rock Creek. If the van was his, he’ll probably try something else soon. He doesn’t like to fail.”
“And if the van wasn’t his?”
“We have other operatives tracking other leads. All you and your partner need to focus on is Jack Reacher. If he wasn’t involved in the attempted bombing, you might find something else on him that we can use. I’m ninety-nine percent certain that Jack Reacher is an enemy of the United States, Nicholas. I would bet my career on it.”
Colt bathed his teeth with another sip of liquor.
“I’m not sure how useful that blurry photograph is going to be,” he said. “I would like to see the video it was taken from.”
“I thought you might,” Valinger said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a flash drive, slid it into one of the USB ports on Colt’s computer.
Colt got up from the bed and walked over to the desk.
“That’s the parking lot outside the restaurant?” he said.
“Yes. Mac’s Diner, Rock Creek, Virginia. This footage came from a camera mounted over the entrance.”
The Ford van was parked in the front row, but it was still probably thirty feet or so from the lens. The light pole two rows behind it cast a harsh glare over the scene, making it difficult to see many details.
“What time of night is this?” Colt said.
“Shortly after eleven. As you can see, there weren’t many cars in the parking lot.”
“Good time to rob a restaurant. Not many people go out to eat that time of night. And the local police were probably busy with shift change reports. No patrol cars happening by.”
“Exactly.”
“So why were Clete Garrison and Felisa Cayenne there at that time?”
“Garrison brought her to the DC area from New York City. He made the late run and then stopped at an out-of-the-way place because of her celebrity status.”
Colt nodded. He stood there and watched the monitor while nothing happened for a few minutes. Then the door on the driver’s side of the Econoline opened and a man climbed out. He was taller than the van. Narrow waist, broad shoulders. He leaned against the side panel and crossed his arms.
“Why did he get out?” Colt said.
“Who knows? He might have been getting antsy because the job was taking longer than expected. Or he might have just needed to stretch his legs.”
Colt wondered if the man’s motivation might have been a little more defined than that. Then he wondered something else.
“Why would Jack Reacher have been involved in a robbery in the first place?” he said.
“For the money. Like I told you, he has no source of steady income. It was Sunday night, and there was a lot of cash in the safe from the weekend. Over ten thousand dollars. The day and time they chose to knock off the place was no accident. They knew what they were doing.”
“Did they get the money?”
“No. You saw what happened in our reenactment down at the soundstage. But if things hadn’t turned out like they did, I have no doubt that the guys in the ski masks would have forced the manager to open the safe.”
“They got Felisa Cayenne instead.”
“Right.”
“And they needed to get out of there quickly after they shot Garrison.”
“Right.”
“Felisa’s one of the most popular singers out there right now,” Colt said. “Plus she has the TV thing.”
“She’s loaded, that’s for sure. Hard to fathom why there hasn’t been a ransom demand.”
“I used to be a musician myself, you know.”
“I know,” Valinger said.
Colt was no stranger to the troubles that sometimes accompanied fame and fortune. He had been the leader of a popular southern rock and blues band in the 1980s. Platinum records, sold out shows. He’d owned mansions
on both coasts. He’d driven the finest automobiles and had stayed at the finest hotels. He was a regular on all the major talk shows, and he couldn’t go anywhere without the paparazzi hounding him. But all that came to a screeching halt when a chartered jet crashed and burst into flames, killing his wife Susan and their baby daughter Harmony and all the members of his band. Colt was the sole survivor.
It had been a long time ago, but some things never changed. When you’re famous, you have to watch your back constantly. Felisa Cayenne probably figured she was safe sitting across from a United States Deputy Marshal. But she figured wrong.
Colt watched the video some more. The tall muscular man opened the door and climbed back into the driver’s seat. A couple of minutes later, the two masked bandits rushed across the parking lot and forced Felisa to the back of the van, where they presumably opened the rear hatch and joined her in the cargo area. The headlights came on, and the vehicle eased forward. It stopped abruptly, lurched, and then sped away from the parking area.
“Let’s watch it again,” Colt said. “I think I saw something.”
With the poor lighting and poor resolution, it was hard to determine anything for sure. But it seemed that near the end someone had used a finger to write something on the inside of the van’s grimy windshield.
One word.
HELP.
This concludes the sample chapters. If you would like to finish the entire book, THE JACK REACHER FILES: ANNEX 1 is now available for purchase.
Thanks again, and happy reading!
Jude
Copyright © 2015 by Jude Hardin
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
January 2015
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
Table of Contents
STORY: CHOKE
SAMPLE: ANNEX 1