Ли Чайлд - The Sentinel

‘When I bought the place. Right. Anyway, I tell you what. How about this? You confirm my unit number, just this once, and I’ll make a note. I’ll write it down, right now, so this will never happen again. And then, any time you want, you can come down to the diner and have anything on the menu, on the house. What do you say?’

‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t.’

‘OK. Dinner for two. Bring your significant other. Or come twice on your own. You won’t regret it.’

‘I shouldn’t.’

‘We have the best milkshakes in town, Steve. The best everything, if you ask me. I might be biased, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.’

‘I don’t know. Can you at least tell me which block you’re in?’

Budnick had said A6. Hope for the best. ‘Sure. Block A.’

‘OK. Wait one.’

Reacher heard the sound of papers rustling, then Steve came back on the line. ‘Anything I want on the menu, right? And I can come twice?’

‘You got it.’

‘You’re in A4, Mr Budnick. Just don’t let anyone know I told you.’

Sands turned back to her window. She hit the A and the 4 on the screen, then the last seven digits of Budnick’s phone number.

Nothing happened. For a long moment. Then the gate swung open.

Once inside the fake stockade they saw there was no further pretence of antiquity. Just six solid, utilitarian structures. The smallest was the office, tucked immediately inside the gate. Its neon sign was switched off, and there were no lights showing inside. The other five buildings were set further back, lined up side by side. They were finished with corrugated metal, painted battleship grey. Each was forty feet wide. A hundred feet long. The shorter sides faced the gate. Each one had a heavy-duty air-conditioning unit sitting next to it. And each had a red letter stencilled on the end wall high up in the angle of the roof. A was level with the office. E was all the way to the left. For a moment the order bothered Reacher. He would have preferred A to E . Not E to A . Then he figured they must have started out with one unit, at the right-hand side of the lot to correspond with the access to the road, then worked their way left as they expanded.

Reacher asked Sands to head for Budnick’s unit first. He figured that the guy on the phone, Steve, might be monitoring the site from some remote position. It would be suspicious if they immediately turned the wrong way. And he wanted to get a sense of the security measures they were up against. He had been worried about guards being present. Roving patrols. Dogs. People brought in by the protection guy to keep an eye on his interests.

It quickly became obvious that the site was unmanned. There were only two kinds of precaution in play. Locks. And cameras. The locks varied from unit to unit so Reacher figured it must be down to the individual clients to provide their own. The cameras were a different story. There were identical ones mounted at the corners of each block. Fifteen feet from the ground, where they couldn’t be accidentally knocked. Or easily sabotaged. They were aimed along the front of the buildings, meaning that the door to every unit in the outer rows was covered by two separate cameras. And all the others by at least two. Possibly four, depending on their field of focus.

There were ten units on each side of each building. The odd numbers were on the right. The even numbers on the left. The protection guy’s unit was E4. So it was on the left. In an outer row. Only covered by two cameras. Sands pulled away from Budnick’s unit and drove to the near side of the E block. She turned and reversed, parallel to the wall, staying as close to the building as she could. She continued until the back of the minivan was just under the outer camera. Reacher cut an eight-inch length of duct tape from the roll. He scrambled on to the roof of the van. Took a step towards the rear. The paint was slippery. The van pitched and yawed on its suspension. Reacher braced himself with one hand against the wall. Crept further back. Stretched up. And covered the lens with the tape.

Sands looped around the perimeter of the site and they repeated the procedure with the camera at the far end of the E block. That meant they could have been recorded approaching Budnick’s unit. And leaving it. And passing the odd-numbered A units. Not ideal. Not disastrous. But more importantly it meant that no one would be able to see them on the even side of the E block. And if no one could see them, no one could report them. To the police. Or to anyone else.

Sands made straight for the protection guy’s unit. She reversed up to it and stayed in the van with the engine running. Reacher got out, carrying the bolt cutter. Rutherford joined him. They checked the number stencilled on both sides of the door frame, then Reacher closed the cutter’s jaws around the stem of the lock. It was surprisingly slim. Reacher broke it open with barely any effort. He removed it. Took hold of the handle low down at the centre of the door. Pulled it up. And saw – furniture. A dining table. Eight matching dining chairs. A couch. Two armchairs. A sideboard. A drinks cabinet. A bureau. And a floor lamp. Nothing electronic. Nothing that had been made in the last fifty years. Maybe seventy-five. Reacher guessed that someone’s relative had died. A parent or a grandparent. Leaving a house to be cleared. Everything else sold or given away or taken into service. The remnants too unfashionable to be used. But too valuable or too sentimental to be disposed of. So they were banished here. A practical solution for someone. But absolutely no help to them.

Sands read their body language and climbed out to join them.

‘Budnick’s an asshole,’ Rutherford said. ‘Reacher was right. He was lying.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Sands said. ‘He got his own unit number wrong. Maybe he got this one wrong too. We should start trying the others.’

‘Is there time?’ Rutherford said. ‘There are a hundred units. Someone might come and see what we’re doing. And what about the cameras? We can’t disable all of them. Even with two down we could have a problem. If someone’s monitoring them. They’re bound to investigate if they notice a whole row’s gone dark.’

‘We wouldn’t have to check all the units,’ Reacher said. ‘Budnick’s story might be bullshit. But if it’s not and the protection guy does keep his contraband here, he will use one of the end rows. They’re the only ones with units you can’t see into from the opposite side. And it’s more likely to be this one than the A block because it’s further from the entrance. Fewer people to see his trucks coming and going.’

‘So nine more to try,’ Sands said. ‘Nineteen, worst case.’

‘Maybe only one more,’ Reacher said. ‘Budnick told us his unit was A6 and the protection guy’s was E4. His was actually A4. So maybe he transposed the digits. Maybe the protection guy’s is E6.’

Reacher moved one unit to the left. Its lock was also slender and unobtrusive but it must have been made with some kind of specially hardened steel. Reacher had to put some serious effort into breaking it. He wrestled with the cutter for maybe half a minute before the stem finally gave way. Then he flipped the body aside. Pulled it clear. Dropped it into his pocket with the other two defeated locks. Took hold of the door handle. And froze. A sound reached him. They were too far from the gate to have heard it open but there was no mistaking the purr of a large motor. The thrum of tyres on concrete. It was a vehicle. Coming their way.

Reacher nodded towards the minivan. Sands and Rutherford jumped inside. Reacher heaved the door to the furniture unit back into place and followed them. A pickup appeared from around the corner of the building. A Toyota. Some kind of metallic bronze colour. Very shiny. No light bar on the roof. No security company logo. No wannabe gangsters with guns. Just the driver. He looked to be in his fifties. And he was in no hurry. He trundled by, gave a friendly wave, and continued towards the far end of the block. Stopped at the last but one door. E18. Climbed out, unlocked the unit, took a box from his load bed, and carried it inside. He was back in his truck within a minute. He waved again. Then fired up the engine and continued around the far corner.