Ли Чайлд - Persuader

She opened her eyes. “You think she’s alive today?”

I nodded. “I think the odds are pretty good. They want her for something. Why keep her alive nine weeks and kill her now?”

Duffy said nothing.

“I think they just moved her,” I said. “That’s all. That’s my best guess. The door was locked in the morning, she was gone by the evening.”

“You think she’s been treated OK?”

I didn’t tell her what Paulie liked to do with Elizabeth Beck. She already had enough to worry about.

“I think she scratched her name with a fork,” I said. “And there was a spare plate of steak and potatoes lying around last night, like they took her out in such a hurry they forgot to tell the cook. So I think they were probably feeding her. I think she’s a prisoner, plain and simple.”

“Where would they have taken her?”

“I think Quinn’s got her,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because it seems to me what we’re looking at here is one organization superimposed over another. Beck’s a bad guy for sure, but he’s been taken over by a worse guy.”

“Like a corporate thing?”

“Exactly,” I said. “Like a hostile takeover. Quinn’s put his staff into Beck’s operation. He’s riding it like a parasite.”

“But why would they move Teresa?”

“A precaution,” I said.

“Because of you? How worried are they?”

“A little,” I said. “I think they’re moving things and hiding things.”

“But they haven’t confronted you yet.”

I nodded. “They’re not really sure about me.”

“So why are they taking a risk with you?”

“Because I saved the boy.”

She nodded. Went quiet. She looked a little tired. I guessed maybe she hadn’t slept at all since I asked her for the car at midnight. She was wearing jeans and a man’s Oxford shirt. The shirt was pure white and neatly tucked in. The top two buttons were undone. She was wearing boat shoes over bare feet. The room heat was set on high. There was a laptop computer on the desk, next to the room phone. The phone was a console thing all covered in fast-dial buttons. I checked the number and memorized it. The laptop was plugged through a complex adapter into a data port built into the base of the phone. There was a screensaver playing on it. It showed the Justice Department shield drifting around. Every time it reached the edge of the screen it would bounce off in a new random direction like that ancient video tennis game. There was no sound with it.

“Have you seen Quinn yet?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Know where he operates out of?”

I shook my head again. “I haven’t really seen anything. Except their books are coded and they don’t have enough of a distribution fleet to be moving what they seem to move. Maybe their customers collect.”

“That would be insane,” she said. “They wouldn’t show their customers their base of operations. In fact we already know they don’t. Beck met with the LA dealer in a parking garage, remember.”

“So maybe they rendezvous somewhere neutral. For the actual sales. Somewhere close by, in the northeast.”

She nodded. “How did you see their books?”

“I was in their office last night. That’s why I wanted the car.”

She moved to the desk and sat down and tapped the laptop’s touch pad. The screensaver disappeared. My last e-mail was displayed under it: See you in 10 minutes. She went into the deleted items directory and clicked on a message from Powell, the MP who had sold me out.

“We traced those names for you,” she said. “Angel Doll did eight years in Leavenworth for sexual assault. Should have been life for rape and murder, but the prosecution screwed up. He was a communications technician. Raped a female lieutenant colonel, left her to bleed to death from the inside. He’s not a very nice guy.”

“He’s a very dead guy,” I said.

She just looked at me.

“He checked the Maxima’s plates,” I said. “Confronted me. Big error. He was the first casualty.”

“You killed him?”

I nodded. “Broke his neck.”

She said nothing.

“His choice,” I said. “He was about to compromise the mission.”

She was pale.

“You OK?” I said.

She looked away. “I wasn’t really expecting casualties.”

“There might be more. Get used to it.”

She looked back at me. Took a breath. Nodded.

“OK,” she said. Then she paused. “Sorry about the plates. That was a mistake.”

“Anything about Paulie?”

She scrolled down the screen. “Doll had a buddy in Leavenworth called Paul Masserella, a bodybuilder, serving eight for assault on an officer. His defense counsel pleaded it down on account of steroid rage. Tried to blame the army for not monitoring Masserella’s intake.”

“His intake is all over the place now.”

“You think he’s the same Paulie?”

“Must be. He told me he doesn’t like officers. I kicked him in the kidney. It would have killed you or Eliot. He didn’t even notice.”

“What’s he going to do about it?”

“I hate to think.”

“You OK with going back?”

“Beck’s wife knows I’m phony.”

She stared at me. “How?”

I shrugged. “Maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe she just wants me to be. Maybe she’s trying to convince herself.”

“Is she broadcasting it?”

“Not yet. She saw me out of the house last night.”

“You can’t go back.”

“I’m not a quitter.”

“You’re not an idiot, either. It’s out of control now.”

I nodded. “But it’s my decision.”

She shook her head. “It’s our decision, jointly. You’re depending on our backup.”

“We need to get Teresa out of there. We really do, Duffy. It’s a hell of a situation for her to be in.”

“I could send SWAT teams for her. Now you’ve confirmed she’s alive.”

“We don’t know where she is right now.”

“She’s my responsibility.”

“And Quinn is mine.”

She said nothing.

“You can’t send SWAT teams,” I said. “You’re off the books. Asking for SWAT teams is the same thing as asking to be fired.”

“I’m prepared to get fired, if it comes to it.”

“It’s not just you,” I said. “Six other guys would get fired with you.”

She said nothing.

“And I’m going back anyway,” I said. “Because I want Quinn. With you or without you. So you might as well use me.”

“What did Quinn do to you?”

I said nothing. She was quiet for a long moment.

“Would Mrs. Beck talk to us?” she said.

“I don’t want to ask her,” I said. “Asking her is the same thing as confirming her suspicions. I can’t be sure exactly where that would lead.”

“What would you do if you went back?”

“Get promoted,” I said. “That’s the key. I need to move up into Duke’s job. Then I’ll be top boy on Beck’s side. Then I’ll get some kind of official liaison with Quinn’s side. That’s what I need. I’m working in the dark without it.”

“We need progress,” she said. “We need evidence.”

“I know,” I said.

“How will you get promoted?”

“Same way anybody gets promoted,” I said.

She didn’t reply to that. Just switched her e-mail program back to inbox and stood up and stepped away to the window to look at the view. I looked at her. The light behind her was coming right through her shirt. Her hair was swept back and a couple of inches of it was on her collar. It looked like a five-hundred-dollar style to me, but I guessed on a DEA salary she probably did it herself. Or got a girlfriend to do it for her. I could picture her in someone’s kitchen, on a chair set out in the middle of the floor, an old towel around her neck, interested in how she looked but not interested enough to spend big bucks in a city salon.