Lee CHILD - Better off Dead

“This woman. What’s her name?”

“Michaela Fenton.”

“Last known whereabouts?”

“Los Gemelos, Arizona. It’s a small town, right on the border.”

“She’s out there undercover? From TEDAC? That’s not SOP. The nearest field office should be handling it. What’s going on? Where’s her partner?”

“She doesn’t have a partner. She left the Bureau. This is more of a personal initiative.”

Wallwork was silent for a moment. “I don’t like the sound of that. The last former agent I know who went down the personal initiative route is now in federal prison. His ex-partner tried to help. It got her killed.”

I said nothing.

“All right. I’ll try. But no promises. TEDAC’s not the kind of place you mess around with. It’s locked down tighter than a bullfrog’s ass. They deal with some seriously sensitive shit. Ask the wrong person the wrong thing, it’s not just the end of your career. You don’t just get fired. You can wind up in jail.”

“I get that. Don’t do anything to jam yourself up. Here’s another angle you could try. I suspect Dendoncker is using his business as a front for smuggling. I don’t know what, or who for.”

“OK. That might help. I have a buddy in the DEA. Another at ATF. I’ll tap them up. When do you need this by?”

“Yesterday.”

“Can I get you on this number?”

“You should be able to. For a while, at least.”

I hung up the phone, made sure the ringer was on, and turned to the bed. I unzipped Fenton’s case and flipped it open. Everything was neatly folded and rolled, just like before. A hint of her perfume floated up. I felt even more intrusive than I had two nights ago. I pulled her stuff out. There was the same combination of clothes and toiletries and props for changing her appearance. I found nothing new. No notes. No files. No “if you’re reading this…” letters.

The guns I’d taken from the guys at The Tree were missing. And she’d taken a couple of other things. The extra ammunition for her Glock. And her field dressing kit. That made sense given what she’d been planning. Everything else in her case was familiar. Including a stack of cards from the Red Roan. Like the one she said she found in the dud bomb, along with her brother’s fingerprint. And a condom. Something about that had sounded off-key when she told me. It still didn’t ring true. I couldn’t place why. It was like a discordant hum at the back of my mind. Faint, but there.

I started to replace Fenton’s belongings and I uncovered her spare foot wrapped in a shirt. A thought hit me when I saw it. I felt a sudden surge of optimism. I rushed out to the car and grabbed the limb Dendoncker’s guy had dropped on the table at the Prairie Rose. I brought it inside the room. Compared it with the one from the suitcase. Both had sockets made of carbon fiber. I ran my fingers around inside them, tracing the shape. The contours felt identical. Both had titanium shafts. They were the same length. The only thing that was different was the shoe. One was a boot. The other a sneaker. Not enough to prove that Dendoncker’s claim to be holding her was a bluff.

I shook off the disappointment and finished repacking Fenton’s case. I did it as neatly as I could. Replaced it by the door, ready to take to the car. Then I searched the rest of the room again. I checked every hiding place I had ever come across. Every trick I had ever heard of anyone using to conceal stuff. And I found nothing. I was left alone with Fenton’s foot lying in the center of the bed and a digital clock on the nightstand. Its cursor was flashing despondently. It was counting the seconds. Seconds that Fenton may not have to spare.

I got brought back to the present by a sound. The phone, chirping away on the desk. It was Wallwork.

He said, “Mixed progress. The smuggling? I got nowhere. My DEA guy quit last week. And my ATF buddy is out sick. Long term. He got shot. But I do have better news about TEDAC. An old supervisor of mine transferred there. He trusts me. He’ll help if he can. I reached out. He hasn’t gotten back to me yet. But he will.”

“Addresses?”

“I turned up a bunch. All with connections to this Dendoncker guy’s business. Most seemed like shells. I think you were right about that. I did find one that seemed legitimate. It’s in the town you mentioned.” He recited a unit number and a street name.

“Where is that in relation to the town center?”

I heard Wallwork’s computer keys rattle. “A mile west. It’s a straight shot. Only one road goes out that way. It looks like Dendoncker’s is the only building on that road.”

“OK. Anything else?”

“Not within five hundred miles. And nothing that isn’t a lawyer’s office or a PO Box.”

“How about Dendoncker personally?”

“That’s where things get stranger. There’s no record of him owning any property anywhere in the state. I checked with the IRS. He does pay taxes. His returns are handled by his accountant. I found the address on his file.”

“Tell me.”

“It won’t do you any good. I looked on Google Earth. It’s a vacant lot. I’m trying to trace the owner, but so far it’s just another bunch of shell corporations.”

“Is Dendoncker married? Is there anything in a wife’s name?”

“There’s no record of a marriage. Nothing about this smells right, Reacher. My advice is to walk away. I know you won’t, so at least be careful.”

“There’s one more place you could check.” I gave him the address of the house I followed the Lincoln to.

Wallwork paused while he jotted the details down. “OK. Will do. I’ll get back to you the moment I learn more.”

I thanked Wallwork before I hung up the phone but I was just being polite. The truth was his information was no use to me at all. Not in the short term, anyway. I figured his contact within TEDAC could bear fruit, in due course. He might help get an angle on Dendoncker’s bomb plot. But my immediate concern was Fenton. Wallwork had only turned up one solid address for Dendoncker’s business and I could tell from the location that it was one Fenton already knew about. It wasn’t the place I was looking for now. That was obvious. It was too public for Dendoncker. His other employees went there whenever they had a flight to service. Fenton had been there for the same reason. And that was while she was actively searching for her brother. She would surely have found him if he was there. Which meant Dendoncker must have another site he used for his wet work. Maybe more than one. It depended on the scale of his operation. And I had an idea how to tap into that. It wasn’t a sure thing. Far from it, in fact. But it was better than sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.

The Red Roan was busier than it had been when I passed by the day before. The lunchtime rush was still in full swing. There were two couples sitting outside. They were at round tables, perching on spindly metal chairs with brightly colored cushions and off-white parasols. Another pair of tables had been pushed together at the edge of the patio. Nine people were crowded around them. They were all different ages. Smartly dressed. I guessed they were colleagues. Probably worked locally. Probably celebrating something.

Not the people I was looking for. I was sure about that.

A pair of tall double doors was standing open at the center of the bar’s façade. There was a hostess station to the right, just inside. It was unattended so I crossed to a U-shaped booth on the far side and slid around until my back was against the wall. The room was a broad rectangle. The bar and the entrance to the kitchen were at one end. The space between the booths and the windows was filled with square tables. They were scattered around apparently at random. Each had a potted cactus on it. The walls were roughly rendered with some kind of pale sandy material. They were covered with oversized paintings of horses. Some were being ridden by cowboys out on the plains, rounding up longhorns. Some were racing. Some were standing around, looking disdainful. There were ten other people in the place. Two couples. And two groups of three.