Ли Чайлд - Persuader

I went out the front door and closed it behind me. The beeping stopped. I locked it and walked around the corner and slid into Doll’s Lincoln. Started it up and drove it away. I left it in a downtown parking garage. It could have been the same one that Susan Duffy had photographed. I wiped everything I had touched and locked it up and put the keys in my pocket. I thought about setting it on fire. It had gas in the tank and I still had two dry kitchen matches. Burning cars is fun. And it would increase the pressure on Beck. But in the end I just walked away. It was probably the right decision. It would take most of a day for anybody to grow aware of it parked there. Most of another day for them to decide to do something about it. Then another day for the cops to respond. They would trace the plate and come up against one of Beck’s shell corporations. So they would tow it away, pending further inquiry. They would bust open the trunk for sure, worried about terrorist bombs or because of the smell, but by then a whole bunch of other deadlines would have been reached and I would be long gone.

I walked back to the Taurus and drove it to within a mile of the house. Returned Duffy’s compliment by U-turning and leaving it facing the right way for her. Then I went through my previous routine in reverse. I stripped on the gritty beach and packed the garbage bag. Waded into the sea. I wasn’t keen to do it. It was just as cold. But the tide had turned. It was going my way. Even the ocean was cooperating. I swam the same twelve minutes. Looped right around the end of the wall and came ashore behind the garage block. I was shaking with cold and my teeth were chattering again. But I felt good. I dried myself as well as I could on the damp linen rag and dressed fast before I froze. Left the Glock and the spare magazines and Doll’s set of keys hidden with the PSM and the chisel and the bradawl. Folded the bag and the towel and wedged them under a rock a yard away. Then I headed for my drainpipe. I was still shivering.

The climb was easier going up than coming down. I walked my hands up the pipe and my feet up the wall. Got level with my window and grabbed the sill with my left hand. Jumped my feet across to the stone ledge. Brought my right hand over and pushed the window up. Hauled myself inside as quietly as I could.

The room was icy. The window had been open for hours. I closed it tight and stripped again. My clothes were damp. I laid them out on the radiator and headed for the bathroom. Took a long hot shower. Then I locked myself in there with my shoes. It was exactly six in the morning. They would be picking up the Taurus. Probably Eliot and the old guy would be doing it. Probably Duffy would have stayed back at base. I took the e-mail device out and sent: Duffy? Ninety seconds later she came back with: Here. You OK? I sent: Fine. Check these names anywhere you can, inc. with MP Powell-Angel Doll, poss. associate Paulie, both poss. ex-military.

She sent: Will do.

Then I sent the question that had been on my mind for five and a half hours: What is Teresa Daniel’s real name?

There was the usual ninety-second delay, and then she came back with: Teresa Justice.

No point in going to bed, so I just stood at the window and watched the dawn. It was soon in full flow. The sun came up over the sea. The air was fresh and clear. I could see fifty miles. I watched an arctic tern coming in low from the north. It skimmed the rocks as it passed them. I guessed it was looking for a place to build a nest. The low sun behind it threw shadows as big as vultures. Then it gave up on the search for shelter and looped and wheeled and swooped away over the water and tumbled into the ocean. It came out a long moment later and silver droplets of freezing water trailed it back into the sky. It had nothing in its beak. But it flew on like it was happy enough. It was better adapted than me.

There wasn’t much to see after that. There were a few herring gulls far in the distance. I squinted against the glare and looked for signs of whales or dolphins and saw nothing. I watched mats of seaweed drift around on circular currents. At six-fifteen I heard Duke’s footsteps in the corridor and the click of my lock. He didn’t come in. He just tramped away again. I turned and faced the door and took a deep breath. Day thirteen, Thursday. Maybe that was better than day thirteen falling on a Friday. I wasn’t sure. Whatever, bring it on. I took another breath and walked out through the door and headed down the stairs.

Nothing was the same as the morning before. Duke was fresh and I was tired. Paulie wasn’t around. I went down to the basement gym and found nobody there. Duke didn’t stay for breakfast. He disappeared somewhere. Richard Beck came in to eat in the kitchen. There was just him and me at the table. The mechanic wasn’t there. The cook stayed busy at the stove. The Irish girl came in and out from the dining room. She was moving fast. There was a buzz in the air. Something was happening.

“Big shipment coming in,” Richard Beck said. “It’s always like this. Everybody gets excited about the money they’re going to make.”

“You heading back to school?” I asked him.

“Sunday,” he said. He didn’t seem worried about it. But I was. Sunday was three days away. My fifth full day there. The final deadline. Whatever was going to happen would have happened by then. The kid was going to be in the crossfire throughout.

“You OK with that?” I asked.

“With going back?”

I nodded. “After what happened.”

“We know who did it now,” he said. “Some assholes from Connecticut. It won’t happen again.”

“You can be that sure?”

He looked at me like I was nuts. “My dad handles stuff like this all the time. And if it’s not done by Sunday, then I’ll just stay here until it is.”

“Does your dad run this whole thing by himself? Or does he have a partner?”

“He runs it all by himself,” he said. His ambivalence was gone. He looked happy to be home, secure and comfortable, proud of his dad. His world had contracted to a barren half-acre of lonely granite, hemmed in by the restless sea and a high stone wall topped by razor wire.

“I don’t think you really killed that cop,” he said.

The kitchen went quiet. I stared at him.

“I think you just wounded him,” he said. “I’m hoping so, anyway. You know, maybe he’s recovering right now. In a hospital somewhere. That’s what I’m thinking. You should try to do the same. Think positive. It’s better that way. Then you can have the silver lining without the cloud.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“So just pretend,” he said. “Use the power of positive thinking. Say to yourself, I did a good thing and there was no downside.”

“Your dad called the local police,” I said. “I don’t think there was any room for doubt.”

“So just pretend,” he said again. “That’s what I do. Bad things didn’t happen unless you choose to recall them.”

He had stopped eating and his left hand was up at the left side of his head. He was smiling brightly, but his subconscious was recalling some bad things, right there and then. That was clear. It was recalling them big time.

“OK,” I said. “It was just a flesh wound.”

“In and out,” he said. “Clean as a whistle.”

I said nothing.

“Missed everything by a fraction,” he said. “It was a miracle.”

I nodded. It would have been some kind of a miracle. That was for damn sure. Shoot somebody in the chest with a soft-nose .44 Magnum and you blow a hole in them the size of Rhode Island. Death is generally instantaneous. The heart stops immediately, mostly because it isn’t there anymore. I figured the kid hadn’t seen anybody shot before. Then I thought, but maybe he has. And maybe he didn’t like it very much.