by Lee Child
‘The nuclear waste?’ Delfuenso said. ‘It’s a capital reserve? Their version of the gold in Fort Knox? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Exactly,’ Reacher said. ‘It sits there and backs their currency. Which they invented. They don’t deal in dollars or pounds or euros or yen. Remember the on-line chatter? They were talking about gallons. That’s what they call their currency unit. They buy and sell in gallons. This bomb costs a hundred gallons, that bomb costs five hundred gallons. Wadiah keeps track of the deals. They take deposits, they process payments, they shuffle balances from one account to another, they make a profit from their fees. Like any bank. Except they don’t use computers, because we can hack computers. It’s all on paper. Which is why McQueen wouldn’t let me burn the place down. Because you guys need names and addresses. It’s like a regular terrorist encyclopedia in there.’
Delfuenso looked at McQueen. She said, ‘Is he right?’
McQueen said, ‘Apart from one minor point.’
‘Which is?’
‘Those tanks are empty. They’re completely harmless. They were built but never used. They’re surplus. That’s why they’re in there. Surplus equipment in a surplus building.’
‘Did Wadiah know they were empty?’
‘Sure,’ McQueen said. ‘Not that they ever admitted it to their clients.’
Delfuenso smiled, just briefly.
‘I’m living the dream,’ she said. ‘I just shot a couple of crooked bankers.’
Delfuenso started the car again and rolled slowly south. Reacher sprawled in the back. Delfuenso and McQueen talked in the front, professionally, one agent to another, assessing the operation, evaluating the result. They ran through all the details, from the inside perspective, and from the outside. She told him about Sorenson. They agreed her fate was the only item in the debit column. Other than that they agreed the outcome was more than satisfactory. Spectacular, even. A major score. A treasure trove of information, and a complex system dismantled. Then McQueen told her the only remaining loose end was the identity of the big boss. Not Peter King, as previously thought. Delfuenso blinked and stopped the car on a lonely kerb in the middle of nowhere.
She said, ‘I got some news from Quantico. When I called them about Whiteman. We heard from the State Department again. But not from their PR people this time. I think this one is genuine.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They have no staffer named Lester L. Lester, Jr. Never did. They never heard of him.’
‘CIA?’
‘Likewise. Never heard of him. And we can believe them. Because right now all their cards are on the table. They’re depending on us to keep quiet about the guy in the old pumping station.’
‘Who was he?’
‘He had worked in Pakistan and all over the Middle East. Except he wasn’t running agents. They were running him. He had gone native. He was Wadiah’s mole inside Langley.’
Delfuenso moved off the kerb and started south again.
McQueen said, ‘Why did he attack us?’
‘He attacked you personally. He had your name. Kansas City’s security is poor, and the CIA watches what we do. They knew we had a mole inside Wadiah. Their mole reported back. The big boss told him to deal with you. So he lured you to a remote location for a meaningless meeting. Simple as that.’
‘You did well,’ Reacher said, from the back seat. ‘Fast reactions. The smart money would have been on the other guy.’
McQueen said, ‘Thank you.’
‘The forehead thing was a bit retro, though.’
‘It was the way it came out. That’s all. I bent his arm and grabbed the knife, and the blade ended up pretty high, so I thought, why the hell not? Just for old times’ sake.’
They came off Route 65 where it turned east, onto the small rural road, ready to cut the corner back to the Interstate exit. They passed the Civil War battlefield site, where Americans had fired cannons at Americans for nine long hours. McQueen turned in his seat and looked at Reacher and said, ‘One last thing.’
Reacher said, ‘What?’
‘Tell me how you talk for a minute without using the letter A.’
Delfuenso said, ‘You were asleep.’
McQueen said, ‘I haven’t slept for seven months.’
Reacher said, ‘Easy. Just start counting. One, two, three, four, five, six. And so on. You don’t hit a letter A until you get to a hundred and one. You can even do it real fast and still get nowhere near ninety-nine inside a minute.’
Delfuenso eased to a stop next to a ragged grassy shoulder. No one spoke. No doubt the FBI had appropriate banter for the occasion. The army sure did. But private jokes are private. So they all sat quiet for a minute. Then Reacher got out and walked away, without looking back, past the first ramp west towards Independence and Kansas City, and onward over the bridge to the eastbound ramp. He put one foot on the shoulder and one in the traffic lane, and he stuck out his thumb, and he smiled and tried to look friendly.
About the Author
Lee Child is one of the world’s leading thriller writers. His novels consistently achieve the number-one slot in hardback and paperback on bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, and are translated into over forty languages. Born in Coventry, he now lives in America.
Visit http://www.leechild.com
Have you read them all?
KILLING FLOOR
Jack Reacher gets off a bus in a small town in Georgia. And is thrown into the county jail, for a murder he didn't commit.
DIE TRYING
Reacher is locked in a van with a woman claiming to be FBI. And ferried right across America into a brand new country.
TRIPWIRE
Reacher is digging swimming pools in Key West when a detective comes round asking questions. Then the detective turns up dead.
THE VISITOR
Two naked women found dead in a bath filled with paint. Both victims of a man just like Reacher.
ECHO BURNING
In the heat of Texas, Reacher meets a young woman whose husband is in jail. When he is released, he will kill her.
WITHOUT FAIL
A Washington woman asks Reacher for help. Her job? Protecting the Vice-President.
PERSUADER
A kidnapping in Boston. A cop dies. Has Reacher lost his sense of right and wrong?
THE ENEMY
Back in Reacher's army days, a general is found dead on his watch.
ONE SHOT
A lone sniper shoots five people dead in a heartland city. But the accused guy says, 'Get Reacher'.
THE HARD WAY
A coffee on a busy New York street leads to a shoot-out three thousand miles away in the Norfolk countryside.
BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE
One of Reacher's buddies has shown up dead in the California desert, and Reacher must put his old army unit back together.
NOTHING TO LOSE
Reacher crosses the line between a town called Hope and one named Despair.
GONE TOMORROW
On the New York subway, Reacher counts down the twelve tell-tale signs of a suicide bomber.
61 HOURS
In freezing South Dakota, Reacher hitches a lift on a bus heading for trouble.
WORTH DYING FOR
Reacher falls foul of a local clan that has terrified an entire Nebraska county into submission.
THE AFFAIR
Six months before the events in Killing Floor, Major Jack Reacher of the US Military Police goes undercover in Mississippi, to investigate a murder.
Jack Reacher: CV
Name: Jack Reacher
(no middle name)
Born: 29 October
Height:
6 foot 5 inches/
1.95 metres
Weight:
220-250 lbs/
100-113 kg
Size:
50-inch/127cm chest,
3XLT coat, 37-inch/
95cm inside leg
Eyes: Blue
&n
bsp; Distinguishing marks:
Scar on corner of left eye, scar on upper lip
Education:
US Army base schools in Europe and the Far East; West Point Military Academy
Service:
US Military Police, thirteen years; first CO of the 110th Division; demoted from Major to Captain after six years, mustered out with rank of Major after seven
Service awards:
Top row: Silver Star, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit
Middle row: Soldier's Medal, Bronze Star, Purple Heart
Bottom row: 'Junk awards'
Last known address:
Unknown
Family:
Mother, Josephine Moutier Reacher, deceased, French national; Father, Career US Marine, deceased, served in Korea and Vietnam; Brother, Joe, deceased, five years in US Military Intelligence, Treasury Dept
Special skills:
Small-arms expert, outstanding on all man-portable weaponry and hand-to-hand combat
Languages:
Fluent English and French, passable Spanish
What he doesn't have:
Driver's licence; credit cards; Federal benefits; tax returns; dependents
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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First published in Great Britain
in 2012 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Lee Child 2012
Lee Child has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409043560
ISBNs 9780593065730 (cased)
9780593065723 (tpb)
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