Ли Чайлд - The Sentinel

‘I don’t know exactly.’

‘But before the archive burned down?’

‘Yes. She started searching the paper records, then was going to use the online archive, then contacted Rutherford as some kind of Hail Mary, hoping he still had the server.’

‘This is finally starting to make sense. She must have found something in the records. Realized the significance and tried to report it. Or just mentioned it to the wrong person without even knowing its importance.’

‘Or the Russians could have had some kind of tripwire in place. Something to alert them if anyone was close to finding whatever they wanted to keep hidden. They’re not reckless. They’d know that one document sitting unnoticed amongst how many – thousands? millions? – in a dusty old archive would attract less attention than a fire.’

‘Either way, Rutherford needs to hand over that server. Like, yesterday.’

‘That’s a logical request. But it’s impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘Rutherford doesn’t know where the server is.’

Fisher turned and slammed her palm against the wall. ‘Damn. Are you sure?’

Reacher nodded. ‘He already tried to get it back.’

‘How did Klostermann account for his project getting someone killed?’

‘He claimed Garza wasn’t working for him exclusively. Said she had a bunch of projects on the go. Blamed her death on some hoodlums from Nashville that she’d been sniffing around.’

‘But you didn’t believe him.’

‘I’m not saying he killed her. I’m not saying he’s working for the Russians. But I know when someone’s hiding something.’

‘I’ll have my people take another look at him. The organization is so compartmentalized you could be married to the local Russian contact and not know it.’

‘I get that.’

‘And Rutherford? Not knowing where the server is? Are you sure he’s telling the truth?’

‘I am. It turns out he used the server for some other project and–’

‘Tell me he didn’t wipe it.’

‘No. He didn’t. Don’t worry. Before the ransomware attack he pressed the town to buy a backup system for all the computers. They wouldn’t come up with the cash so he tried to build one of his own out of spare parts. It was supposed to overwrite whatever was on the server, but that didn’t happen. That’s how he knew it had failed. He was so mad about it he threw all the equipment in the trash.’

‘He’s got to get it back.’

‘He’s trying.’

‘Why? To give it to Klostermann?’

‘No. He thinks the server can help with another thing he’s working on. He wants it back for himself.’

‘Can you help him find it?’

‘Can’t you? With all the resources of the Bureau?’

‘No.’ Fisher shook her head. ‘If the Russians latch on to a bunch of federal agents searching the local trash heaps they’ll know where to look. We have to keep this under the radar. Give it another couple of days. Please.’

‘What difference will a couple of days make? The election is weeks away. Rutherford can find the server on his own and figure out a way to get a copy to you. He’s a smart guy.’

‘It’s not that simple. For a start, the election. Yes, it’s a while away. But for thirty days leading up to it there’s what’s called a systems freeze. Nothing computer related can be changed in any way. It’s the same kind of thing the credit card companies and online retailers do heading into Black Friday and Christmas. It makes sure no one loads new software which turns out not to work properly and screws everything up at their most critical time. So, if we can’t positively confirm that The Sentinel hasn’t been compromised before then, we have a real problem. And if – when – we get our hands on Rutherford’s server we don’t even know what we’re looking for. There could be thousands of documents on there, and I very much doubt one of them will be labelled Identity of Russian Spy . All kinds of cross-referencing will be needed. Lateral thinking. Reading tea leaves and casting chicken bones, probably. So the bottom line, like I said, is we need that thing yesterday.’

‘I’ll tell Rutherford to search quickly. And anyway, how many trash heaps can there be in a town this size?’

‘Finding the server’s not the only problem. You said you care about keeping Rutherford safe.’

‘And?’

‘The original plan was for us to snatch Rutherford. He’d give up the item – the server, as we now believe – or its location and then, overcome by shame and depression after losing his job and bearing the blame for the ransomware attack, he would kill himself. I’m the senior operative so it would have been me who staged it. Obviously I’d have made sure Rutherford walked away. Only before that could happen you arrived and put half the team on the disabled list. The rest of us have been switched to surveillance only. A new guy is being brought in to finish the job. A specialist, from Moscow. He’ll outrank me. So if you leave and he gets his hands on Rutherford, there may be nothing I can do about it.’

Reacher drove the six miles from the factory to the town with six words on his mind.

Forty eight hours . And Need to know .

The issue of timing was the more straightforward, in a conceptual sense. They had a two-day window to operate with relatively little interference while Fisher’s cell was restricted to surveillance. After that things would get more difficult. The offensive would resume. Reinforcements would arrive. A specialist. From Moscow. Outranking Fisher. With unknown capabilities. But certainly unsympathetic to Rutherford. Which meant that if they were going to retrieve the server and turn it over to the FBI it would be advantageous to do so before the new guy got his feet on the street.

The issue of secrecy was more difficult to resolve. It brought practical considerations into play. Back when Reacher had run the 110th MP Special Investigation Unit he had tended to be open with his people. Sometimes more open than he should have been. More open than his superior officers would have liked, anyway. If they’d known. But Reacher trusted his team. He had hand-picked each of them. He had worked with them. He could predict how each of them would respond in any given situation. And besides, when you were dealing with the likes of Frances Neagley, trying to keep anything hidden was a fool’s errand. Reacher liked Rutherford. He had no wish to keep him in the dark. Not just for the sake of it. But he didn’t know him in the same way. Rutherford had already expressed a reluctance to let the authorities have the server. His eye was on the prize he thought his Cerberus system could win for him. Reacher was fairly certain he would change his mind if he understood the full implications. The Sentinel. The integrity of the election. The Russians. Discord and division. But there was no way to bring him into the picture without revealing that there was an agent in place in one of the Russian cells. Or at least implying it. And if something went wrong and Rutherford fell into the Russians’ hands there would be no way he could avoid spilling that information. Either now, or later if they came back to run some kind of post-mortem into what went wrong with their operation. When Reacher wouldn’t be around to watch out for him.

When Reacher got back to Mitch’s apartment he realized that he needn’t have worried about instilling any sense of urgency into the other two. The lure of the almighty dollar had taken care of that for him. Sands had started digging first thing that morning but she’d turned up nothing useful, so Rutherford had taken up the baton. He had started trawling through the files on his laptop the moment Reacher left for the factory. He found the minutes of a Heads of Department meeting he must have dozed through the previous month. One of the agenda items had been the town’s refuse contract, and a follow-up note confirmed it had been renewed for another year with a local company. Warhurst’s Waste-Away Express. He Googled their contact information and Sands called their office. She said she was writing a story about responsible refuse management for The Tennessean . She had to try four different people before she found someone who believed her. But she did finally manage to finesse the information they needed. The town’s surplus or obsolete electronic equipment was separated from the regular trash. Then it was sent for recycling at a facility eleven miles west of town. She and Rutherford were on the verge of leaving to investigate the place when Reacher arrived at the door.