Lee Child - A Wanted Man

‘Poor guy. He’s going to be under a hell of a lot of pressure. With King dead? How is he going to explain that?’

‘With great difficulty, I would think.’

‘But you were right. He missed you deliberately. He fired over your head.’

‘But there was nothing he could fake when it came time to punch Delfuenso’s ticket. So he offed King instead.’

‘Good man. I hope he’s OK.’

‘What happened with you?’ Reacher asked again.

Sorenson sat down on the bed. She said, ‘Me? It started out OK. In fact it started out just fine. I drove back to Delfuenso’s place and got my phone and got back in my own car and called my SAC. I told him I had managed to overpower you and hand you over to the Kansas City boys. My SAC was very impressed. And he was very pleased. But I couldn’t quite let it go. I asked a few too many questions. He didn’t like that so much. I could tell. Then at one point he changed completely. He wasn’t pleased any more. Not pleased at all. I could hear it in his voice.’

‘At what point?’

‘I checked the glove box when I locked up Goodman’s car. Purely out of habit. I didn’t want any unsecured weapons left in it, and who knows what a country sheriff keeps in his glove box? But as it happened there was nothing in there except a notebook and a pen. So I looked through the notebook, naturally. Turns out Sheriff Goodman was a very thorough guy. He’d been doing his research overnight, and he’d been making notes about Karen Delfuenso. I guess he figured the more the merrier, when it came to information. I guess he thought it would help, if we didn’t get her back fast, although I can’t see how it would.’

‘And?’

‘There was something in there that struck me as odd, so I asked my SAC about it. Except I didn’t actually ask about it. I just mentioned it, really. But whichever, that was when he went all weird on me.’

‘What something was odd?’

‘I took Delfuenso to be a long-term resident. Maybe not necessarily a fourth generation farm girl or anything, but I got the impression she’d been there a good long time. Certainly I figured Lucy would have been born and raised there.’

‘But she wasn’t?’

‘They’ve only been there seven months. The neighbour on the other side said they moved there after a divorce. So it seems to have been a much more recent divorce than I thought.’

‘Are we even sure she was married in the first place?’ Reacher said.

‘There’s a kid.’

‘That doesn’t confirm marriage.’

‘Why wouldn’t she have been married?’

‘She copes on her own,’ Reacher said. ‘She copes really well. Like she’s always been obliged to. And she’s smart. Looking after some guy would drive her crazy.’

‘Smart women shouldn’t get married?’

‘Are you married?’

She didn’t answer that. She said, ‘I don’t care if it was a wedding with a thousand guests on a beach in Hawaii or a one-night stand in a motel in New Jersey. The point wasn’t that she was a single mom. The point is she’s a single mom who moved to town just seven months ago.’

Reacher said, ‘The Kansas City boys told me this operation is seven months old.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘Why would they lie?’

‘No, I mean Delfuenso can’t be connected. How could she be? It has to be a coincidence. It has to be. Because we’ve already got one coincidence.’

Reacher said, ‘So now we have two coincidences?’

‘Which is one too many.’

‘What’s the first coincidence?’

Sorenson said, ‘You remember Alan King’s brother?’

‘Peter King? The fister?’

‘Apparently my night guy put a search on him. Just to be helpful. Right after he got off the phone with Mother Sill, the first time. DMVs, the postal service, the banks, the credit card companies. The cell phone companies, if we can get away with it, which is usually always. And the results came back this evening.’

‘And what were they?’

‘It looks like Peter King left Denver and moved to Kansas City.’

‘When?’

‘Seven months ago.’

REACHER MOVED IN his chair and ran his fingers through his hair and said, ‘Alan King told me his brother wasn’t speaking to him.’

Sorenson said, ‘Did Alan King live in Kansas City?’

‘I think so.’

‘Maybe he didn’t. And even if he did, maybe they never met. Kansas City is a big enough place.’

‘I know,’ Reacher said. ‘Metro area population is a million and a half.’

‘Is it?’

‘Area code is 816.’

‘OK.’

Reacher said, ‘So now we have three coincidences. Seven months ago Delfuenso moved to the back of beyond in Nebraska, and simultaneously Peter King moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where his brother might or might not have been living, and where his brother might or might not have been even speaking to him, and simultaneously your central region counterterrorism people, who are based in Kansas City, Missouri, decided to start up a complex undercover operation that seems to be centred on a spot very close to Delfuenso’s new quarters in the back of beyond in Nebraska.’

‘We can’t have three coincidences. That’s too many.’

‘I would agree,’ Reacher said. ‘Theoretically. But we don’t have three coincidences. We have two proven links.’

‘Proven how?’

Reacher leaned forward in his chair and put his palm on the bed. He pressed down and tested the mattress for softness and yield.

He said, ‘First, Peter King was definitely Alan King’s brother. And Alan King was definitely a bad guy. Because an undercover FBI agent found it necessary to shoot him in the heart and burn him up in a fire. Which is a pretty basic definition for being a bad guy, wouldn’t you say?’

‘And second?’

Reacher said, ‘Your SAC had you brought here because you found out about Delfuenso’s move seven months ago. And this place is for people who stumble on evidence of undercover operations. Therefore Delfuenso’s move was part of an undercover operation.’

‘What part?’

Reacher said, ‘Let’s go ask her.’

Reacher stopped short of Delfuenso’s door, and Sorenson stepped up and knocked softly. There was a long minute’s delay, and then there was the rattle of a chain. The door opened a crack on dim light inside and Delfuenso’s voice whispered, ‘Who is it?’

Reacher figured she was whispering because her kid had just gone to sleep.

Sorenson said, ‘Karen Delfuenso?’

Delfuenso whispered, ‘Yes?’

Sorenson said, ‘I’m Julia Sorenson from the FBI field office in Omaha. I was working on getting you back last night.’

And then Delfuenso shushed her, quite impatiently, like Reacher knew she would. Because her ten-year-old had just gotten to sleep. Delfuenso came out and bustled Sorenson away from the door, like Reacher knew she would, over to a place more than ten feet away, where it was safe to make a noise.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sorenson said. ‘I didn’t mean to be a nuisance. I just wanted to introduce myself. I just wanted to see you were OK.’

‘I’m fine,’ Delfuenso said, and more than ten feet behind her Reacher slipped into the room.

He had been in the room once before, so he was safely familiar with its layout, even in the dark, and it was dark. There was no light anywhere except an orange neon bulb inside a light switch in the bathroom. Its faint glow showed Lucy asleep in the bed farther from the door. She was on her side, fetal, rolled into the blankets. The sheet was up to her chin. Her hair was spilled on the pillow, black on white. Reacher found Delfuenso’s bag on the other bed. Nearer the door, nearer the armchairs. He had seen her lift it off the chair and dump it on the bed. It had looked heavy. And the mattresses were soft and yielding. Not like trampolines. Not like drum skins. But even so the bag had bounced. Like she still had her bottle of water in it.