Lee CHILD - Better off Dead

I wasn’t buying the cooperation angle. Not when Dendoncker seemed to think that Khalil could have sent me to kill him. But there was a connection between them. It was a recipe for nothing good. That was for sure. And I had seen Dendoncker. How he operates. Where he hung out. How much he needed to be taken off the street. So I said, “All right. Have them call me.”

“They don’t want to talk on the phone, Reacher. They want to talk face-to-face.”

I said nothing.

“Think about it. If this goes south there’s the potential for major casualties. Major loss of life. If that happens, and you were in their shoes, could you live with yourself if you hadn’t adequately interviewed the only guy with firsthand information?”

He had a point.

“They only want you for an hour. Two, tops. So, what do you say?”

“I don’t know. When?”

“Today.”

“Where?”

“TEDAC. It’s at the Redstone Arsenal. Near Huntsville, Alabama.”

“How am I supposed to get there in a day? It must be more than fifteen hundred miles away.”

“They’ll send a plane. To be honest, they already sent one. It’s waiting for you. There’s an airfield an hour’s drive from Los Gemelos. Four agents are on their way to safeguard the guy you rescued. One of them will drive you.”

I wondered if it was one of the airfields Dendoncker’s crew used to smuggle things through. “And afterward?”

“They’ll take you wherever you like. Within the United States.”

“San Francisco?”

“Sure. If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“OK. I’ll arrange it. Oh. One other thing. This might make you smile. A fax came for you at the hotel. At 12:34 a.m. From Dendoncker. He said the operation was on hold. You were to stay where you were. And not let the item out of your sight.”

The conversation had woken Fenton up. She was still in the armchair at Michael’s side so I went and sat on his bed and filled her in on developments.

“Well then,” Fenton said when I was finished. “Looks like you’ll make it to the ocean after all. A private jet. Sent by the government. Guess you’re taking hitchhiking to a whole new level.”

I said, “I hope Michael pulls through. And I’ll put in a good word for both of you.”

She shook her head. “Just for Michael. I knew what I was doing. I’ll take what’s coming to me.”

“Can you remember a number?”

“You’re keeping that phone?”

“No. The number’s for someone else. A woman. Her name’s Sonia. I met her when I was looking for you. She helped me. And she was close to Michael. You should call her. Let her know he’s alive.”

“She was close to Michael? How close?”

I shrugged. “Very, I guess. They met in the hospital in Germany. Seems like they’ve been together ever since.”

I could see Fenton doing the math. She hadn’t heard about this woman before. That was clear. And her own relationship with her brother had started to wither right around the time the two must have hooked up.

She said, “What’s she like, this Sonia? Will I like her?”

“I hope so. Could be your future sister-in-law we’re talking about.”

The plane was waiting when I reached the airport. It was sitting near the end of the runway, alone and aloof from the handful of crop dusters and two-seater trainers that were dotted around. It was some kind of Gulfstream. All sharp angles and glossy black paint so that it looked like it was going fast even when it wasn’t moving. It had a tail number, but like the Sikorsky I’d flown back from Texas in, there was no agency designation. Just the words United States.

The agent flashed her badge at the video camera on the intercom at the gate and then drove right up to the plane. Its engines were turning over and when we looped around its tail, I saw that the steps were down. Thirty seconds later I was on board and strapped into a seat. A couple of minutes after that we were in the air. No safety briefings. No lining up to take off. And no other passengers.

The vibe inside was more mobile office than luxury club. There was plenty of blond wood with all kinds of plugs and ports and connectors for computers. There were twelve seats. They were finished in navy leather and could be swiveled around. Tables could be folded out from under the windows. There was a projector on the ceiling. A display screen. And a coffee machine. I helped myself to a cup and then settled down to doze. The flight was smooth and quiet. The pilot flew high and fast. We were in the air for less than three hours. I woke up when she began our final descent. The landing was gentle. The taxi was short. And a car was waiting for me when I climbed down the steps.

The army airfield is in the northwest corner of the Redstone Arsenal complex. The TEDAC buildings are at the southeast, more than a mile away. The Bureau driver who collected me didn’t say a word as he zigzagged through the warren of NASA laboratories and army facilities and other kinds of FBI operations. I guess getting sent to ferry scruffy civilians around wasn’t the plum choice of duty around there. He finally pulled up alongside a line of shiny, knee-high security bollards and pointed toward a glass-fronted building on the far side.

He said, “In there. Ask for Agent Lane.”

Inside there were three security guards, all in private contractor’s uniforms. The first was sitting behind a reception desk. She asked to see my ID. I handed her my passport. She didn’t care that it had expired. She just laid it on a scanner and a minute later a machine to its side spat out a laminated pass with my photo, the date, and a two-hour validity period. I clipped it to my shirt and the next guy held out a bin for my other possessions. I dropped in my cash and my phone and he fed them through an X-ray machine. He asked for my shoes. I slipped them off and dumped them on the conveyor belt. The third guy then directed me through an arch-shaped metal detector. It didn’t buzz or beep, and by the time I had replaced my shoes and retrieved my things, a fourth guy had showed up. He looked like he was in his early forties. He was wearing a dark gray suit with a tie and he had an ID badge on a chain around his neck.

He said, “I’m Supervisory Special Agent James Lane.” He held out his hand. “Quite a mouthful, I know. I’m heading up the team we’re putting together in response to these new developments. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I hope you’ll be able to help. Come on. This way. I’ll show you what’s what.”

A stone path stretched away from the exit to the security building. It led up two sets of matching stone steps to a broad, flat area that was full of wooden picnic tables with gray umbrellas. There were two neighboring buildings. Lane pointed to the one on the left. It was big, gray, rectangular, and featureless.

He said, “We call that one The Building . Never tell me G-Men have no imagination, eh? Anyway, ever seen that Indiana Jones movie about the Ark of the Covenant? The scene at the end where they hide its crate in a warehouse? That’s what it’s like inside. Shelves, floor to ceiling, end to end. More than a hundred thousand containers. Every piece of every device we’ve analyzed over the last eighteen years. The place is almost full. We’ve already broken ground on another one. But that’s not where we’re going.”

Lane started walking toward the right-hand building. This one had two distinct sections. A single-story part with a flat roof, stone walls, and tall windows. And a part with a higher, angled roof, white walls, and no windows. The way they were butted up together made it look like the second half was trying to swallow the first.