Lee Child - A Wanted Man

‘Did they say what kind of bad guys these are?’

Delfuenso shook her head.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But they seem very worried about them.’

Dinner came next, and it was a very strange meal. They walked over to the main building together like a little family, Reacher and Delfuenso side by side with Lucy skipping and tripping between them. The dining room was a large square space with twenty tables and eighty chairs, all of them serviceable pine items thickly varnished to a high syrup shine. The room was like many other rooms Reacher had seen, but it was completely empty apart from the eyewitness, who was sitting alone at a corner table behind a miniature thicket of three empty beer bottles, all different. He was working on a fourth, and he jabbed its neck in the air in an enthusiastic greeting. A happy man. Maybe he hadn’t had a vacation in years either. Or ever.

The motherly woman from the reception desk brought menus. Reacher wondered if she was FBI too, and concluded she probably was. As it happened the three guests she had right then were contented enough, at least for the moment, but he imagined others might find the situation stressful or annoying, in which case he figured she would need some kind of official weight to back up her naturally patient manner.

The menu offered just two choices, cheeseburger or chicken, presumably both microwaved straight out of a freezer. FBI agents tended to come out of law school or law enforcement, not out of restaurant kitchens. Reacher chose the cheeseburger, his fifth of the day, and Delfuenso and her daughter followed suit.

Then before the meals arrived two more people came in. Both men, both in blue suits and white shirts and blue ties. The owners of the parked Crown Vics, obviously. The resident agents. The babysitters. They looked alert and alive and solidly competent.

Delfuenso said, ‘They’re the two who brought me here.’

Lucy said, ‘They’re the two who brought me here. From Paula’s house.’

The two men scanned the room and headed straight for Reacher. The one on the right said, ‘Sir, we’d appreciate it if you’d eat your dinner at our table tonight.’

Reacher said, ‘Why?’

‘We need to introduce ourselves.’

‘And?’

‘We need to tell you the rules.’

THE TWO BUREAU suits led Reacher to a four-place table in the opposite corner of the room to where the eyewitness had stationed himself. Reacher took the corner chair, his back to the wall, the whole room in view. Pure habit. No real reason. No danger of any kind. That dining room was probably the safest place in Kansas.

The two agents sat down, one on his left and one on his right. They leaned in, intently, elbows on the table. They were maybe a little younger than McQueen or Sorenson. Late thirties, or dead-on forty. Not rookies, but not old-timers, either. Both were dark and wiry. One was going bald faster than the other. They said their names were Bale and Trapattoni. They said they were close colleagues of Dawson and Mitchell. Same field office, same job. They said they had read Reacher’s record from the military. They said they knew all about him.

Reacher said nothing about that.

Bale was the guy losing his hair. He asked, ‘You happy here?’

Reacher said, ‘Why would I be?’

‘Why wouldn’t you be?’

‘I took an oath to protect the Constitution. So did you, I guess.’

‘And?’

‘I’m being deprived of my liberty without due process of law. That’s a Fifth Amendment offence, right there. And you’re a party to it.’

‘This isn’t a prison.’

‘I guess the fence maker didn’t get that memo.’

‘So you’re not happy?’

Reacher said, ‘Actually I’m fine. I like you guys. I like the FBI. I like the way you think. I can’t help it. You’re doing wrong, but you’re doing wrong right. You put everyone together, so there are mutual witnesses to everything that goes on here. You could have thrown us in solitary somewhere and done whatever the hell you liked to us. But you couldn’t do that. Because deep down you’re on the side of the angels. I can’t take that away from you. You even left the mini golf here. When did you buy this place?’

Trapattoni said, ‘Three years ago.’

‘Was it a Kansas City initiative?’

‘Yes, it was. Counterterrorism, central region.’

‘Why did you need it?’

‘There was an emerging requirement.’

‘For what?’

‘For a place to keep people safe.’

‘I think it’s a place for keeping yourselves safe.’

‘How so?’

‘I think you take witnesses away from local law enforcement whenever your undercover operations get messy. So that no questions are ever answered.’

‘You don’t think undercover agents deserve to be kept safe?’

‘I think they deserve all the help they can get.’

‘So?’

‘I’m wondering how many undercover operations you run. This place could take fifty people at a time. That’s a lot of witnesses.’

‘I can’t comment on how many operations we run.’

‘Has this place ever been full?’

‘No.’

‘Has it ever been empty?’

‘No.’

‘In three years? That’s quite a few operations.’

‘It’s a big job.’

Reacher said, ‘So tell me the rules.’

Bale said, ‘There are two of them.’

‘Try me. I can count that high.’

‘You’ll be our guest here until the operation is concluded. That’s non-negotiable. And you won’t discuss what you’ve seen of the operation so far with the other guests. Or with anyone else. Not even any tiny little part of it. Not now and not ever. That’s non-negotiable too.’

‘That’s it?’

‘It’s for your own good. They saw you too. Only one of those guys in the Impala was on the side of the angels.’

‘King died.’

‘But not before he used his phone a couple of times. From the gas stations, we think. The times of the calls coincide with the use of the credit card.’

‘You were tapping his phone?’

‘Having an undercover man brings many advantages.’

‘What did he say about me?’

‘They have your name and your description. Bear that in mind when you think bad thoughts about the fence maker.’

‘Who are these guys?’

No answer.

‘Is McQueen going to be OK?’

‘Don’t worry about him.’

‘I can’t help it.’

‘We put seven months into this. He’s not going to quit now.’

‘I’m not worried about him quitting. I’m worried about someone else making that decision for him. He’s got some explaining to do tonight.’

‘We can’t discuss it,’ Bale said. ‘Just remember the rules.’

And that was it. Bale sat back. Trapattoni sat back. The conversation was over. And right on cue the food came. Reacher figured the motherly type had been watching through a spy hole. Or listening on a headset.

Delfuenso and her daughter were long gone and the eyewitness was finishing up his seventh bottle of beer by the time Reacher left the dining room. He walked along the lit-up path towards his temporary quarters and he stopped in the chill air and looked up at the sky. There were no stars. No moon. Ideal conditions for a little clandestine activity, except there was no way out but the gate, and there was no way of opening it, and there were no telephones.

Then the eyewitness came stumbling out of the dining room and up the path. The knee-high fingerpost lights gave Reacher a pretty good view of the guy’s legs working not quite right. He was more than buzzed, but not yet falling down. He was taking slow and elaborately precise steps, left, right, putting his feet down flat, striding shorter than normal, looking down and concentrating hard. Reacher backtracked until his shins were in a pool of light. Full disclosure. He didn’t want to give the guy a heart attack.