Ли Чайлд - Persuader

“Your agent is dead. Eight weeks now, it would be a miracle. You should face it.”

She said nothing.

“And I don’t care about Quinn.”

She glanced right and shook her head.

“You do,” she said. “You really do. I can see that from here. It’s eating you up. He’s unfinished business. And my guess is you’re the sort of guy who hates unfinished business.” Then she paused for a second. “And I’m proceeding on the assumption that my agent is still alive, unless and until you supply definitive proof to the contrary.”

“Me?” I said.

“I can’t use one of my people,” she said. “You understand that, right? This whole thing is illegal as far as the Justice Department is concerned. So whatever I do next has to stay off the books. And my guess is you’re the sort of guy who understands off-the-books operations. And is comfortable with them. Even prefers them, maybe.”

“So?”

“I need to get somebody inside Beck’s place. And I’ve decided it’s going to be you. You’re going to be my very own long-rod penetrator.”

“How?”

“Richard Beck is going to take you there.”

She came off the pike about forty miles west of Boston and turned north into the Massachusetts countryside. We passed through picture-perfect New England villages. Fire departments were out on the curbs polishing their trucks. Birds were singing. People were putting stuff on their lawns and pruning their bushes. There was the smell of woodsmoke in the air.

We stopped at a motel in the middle of nowhere. It was an immaculate place with quiet brick facings and blinding white trim. There were five cars in the lot. They were blocking access to the five end rooms. They were all government vehicles. Steven Eliot was waiting in the middle room with five men. They had hauled their desk chairs in from their own rooms. They were sitting in a neat semicircle. Duffy led me inside and nodded to Eliot. I figured it was a nod that meant: I told him, and he hasn’t said no. Yet. She moved to the window and turned so that she faced the room. The daylight was bright behind her. It made her hard to see. She cleared her throat. The room went quiet.

“OK, listen up, people,” she said. “One more time, this is off the books, this is not officially sanctioned, and this will be done on our own time and at our own risk. Anybody wants out, just leave now.”

Nobody moved. Nobody left. It was a smart tactic. It showed me she and Eliot had at least five guys who would follow them to hell and back.

“We have less than forty-eight hours,” she said. “Day after tomorrow Richard Beck heads home for his mother’s birthday. Our source says he does it every year. Cuts classes and all. His father sends a car with two pro bodyguards because the kid is terrified of a repeat abduction. We’re going to exploit that fear. We’re going to take down the bodyguards and kidnap him.”

She paused. Nobody spoke.

“Our aim is to get into Zachary Beck’s house,” she said. “We can assume the supposed kidnappers themselves wouldn’t exactly be welcome there. So what will happen is that Reacher will immediately rescue the kid from the supposed kidnappers. It will be a tight sequence, kidnap, rescue, like that. The kid comes over all grateful and Reacher is greeted like a hero around the family hearth.”

People sat quiet at first. Then they stirred. The plan was so full of holes it made a Swiss cheese look solid. I stared straight at Duffy. Then I found myself staring out the window. There were ways of plugging the holes. I felt my brain start to move. I wondered how many of the holes Duffy had already spotted. I wondered how many of the answers she had already gotten. I wondered how she knew I loved stuff like this.

“We have an audience of one,” she said. “All that matters is what Richard Beck thinks. The whole thing will be phony from beginning to end, but he’s got to be absolutely convinced it’s real.”

Eliot looked at me. “Weaknesses?”

“Two,” I said. “First, how do you take the bodyguards down without really hurting them? I assume you’re not that far off the books.”

“Speed, shock, surprise,” he said. “The kidnap team will have machine pistols with plenty of blank ammunition. Plus a stun grenade. Soon as the kid is out of the car, we toss a flashbang in. Lots of sound and fury. They’ll be dazed, nothing more. But the kid will assume they’re hamburger meat.”

“OK,” I said. “But second, this whole thing is like method acting, right? I’m some kind of a passerby, and coincidentally I’m the type of guy who can rescue him. Which makes me smart and capable. So why wouldn’t I just haul his ass around to the nearest cops? Or wait for the cops to come to us? Why wouldn’t I stick around and give evidence and make all kinds of witness statements? Why would I want to immediately drive him all the way home?”

Eliot turned to Duffy.

“He’ll be terrified,” she said. “He’ll want you to.”

“But why would I agree? It doesn’t matter what he wants. What matters is what is logical for me to do. Because we don’t have an audience of one. We have an audience of two. Richard Beck and Zachary Beck. Richard Beck there and then, and Zachary Beck later. He’ll be looking at it in retrospect. We’ve got to convince him just as much.”

“The kid might ask you not to go to the cops. Like last time.”

“But why would I listen to him? If I was Mr. Normal the cops would be the first thing on my mind. I’d want to do everything strictly by the book.”

“He would argue with you.”

“And I would ignore him. Why would a smart and capable adult listen to a crazy kid? It’s a hole. It’s too cooperative, too purposeful, too phony. Too direct. Zachary Beck would rumble it in a minute.”

“Maybe you get him in a car and you’re being chased.”

“I’d drive straight to a police station.”

“Shit,” Duffy said.

“It’s a plan,” I said. “But we need to get real.”

I looked out of the window again. It was bright out there. I saw a lot of green stuff. Trees, bushes, distant wooded hillsides dusted with new leaves. In the corner of my eye I saw Eliot and Duffy looking down at the floor of the room. Saw the five guys sitting still. They looked like a capable bunch. Two of them were a little younger than me, tall and fair. Two were about my age, plain and ordinary. One was a lot older, stooped and gray. I thought long and hard. Kidnap, rescue, Beck’s house. I need to be in Beck’s house. I really do. Because I need to find Quinn. Think about the long game. I looked at the whole thing from the kid’s point of view. Then I looked at it again, from his father’s point of view.

“It’s a plan,” I said again. “But it needs perfecting. So I need to be the sort of person who wouldn’t go to the cops.” Then I paused. “No, better still, right in front of Richard Beck’s eyes, I need to become the sort of person who can’t go to the cops.”

“How?” Duffy said.

I looked straight at her. “I’ll have to hurt somebody. By accident, in the confusion. Another passerby. Some innocent party. Some kind of ambiguous circumstance. Maybe I run somebody over. Some old lady walking her dog. Maybe I even kill her. I panic and I run.”

“Too difficult to stage,” she said. “And not really enough to make you run, anyway. I mean, accidents happen, in circumstances like these.”

I nodded. The room stayed quiet. I closed my eyes and thought some more and saw the beginnings of a sketchy scene take shape right there in my mind.

“OK,” I said. “How about this? I’ll kill a cop. By accident.”

Nobody spoke. I opened my eyes.