Lee Child - 61 Hours

‘I don’t follow.’

Reacher said, ‘You don’t really know where they are or what they’re doing. All you know is if they answer your call or not.’

‘I ask them where they are. They tell me. Either they’re in position or close to it. And the prison warden is entitled to check.’

‘How?’

‘He can go up in a tower and eyeball. The land is flat. Or he can tap into our radio net and call the roll himself, if he wants.’

‘Did he tonight?’

‘I don’t know.’

Reacher asked, ‘Who was last into position tonight?’

‘I can’t say. Early in the alphabet, they’re all still in motion. Late in the alphabet, they’re all already on station.’

‘So they tell you.’

‘Why would I doubt them?’

‘You need to call Chief Holland,’ Reacher said. ‘Mrs Salter is dead.’

Reacher wandered through the silent station, the squad room, Holland’s office, the bathrooms, and he came to rest in the room with the crime scene photographs pinned to the walls. The biker, and the lawyer. He sat with his back to the biker and looked at the lawyer. He didn’t know the guy’s name. Didn’t know much about him at all. But he knew enough to know the guy was basically the same as Janet Salter. A man, not a woman, a frozen road, not a warm book-lined room, but they were both half-wise, half-unworldly people lulled into a false sense of security, tricked into relaxing. The shift lever in Park and the window all the way down in the door were the same things as Janet Salter’s comfortable posture and the book on her lap.

Understand their motives, their circumstances, their goals, their aims, their fears, their needs. Think like them. See what they see. Be them.

They were both all the way there. Not partway, not halfway. They were completely trusting. They had opened up, literally. Doors, windows, hearts, minds. Not half worried, not half formal, not half suspicious.

They were all the way there.

Not just any cop could do that to them.

It was a cop they both knew, had met before, were familiar with.

Peterson had asked: What would your elite unit do now?

Answer: Reacher or Susan or any of the other 110th Special Unit COs in between them would put their feet up on the damaged desk and send a pair of eager lieutenants to map out both lives, to list all known acquaintances in the Bolton PD in order of intimacy. Then he or she or any of the others would cross-reference the lists, and a name would show up in common.

Reacher had no pair of eager lieutenants.

But there were other approaches.

A minute later Reacher heard footsteps in the corridor. Arrhythmic. The slap of one sole, followed by the scrape of the other. The old guy from the counter. He had a slight limp. He stuck his head in the door and said, ‘Chief Holland is on his way. He’s leaving his post up there. He shouldn’t, but he is.’

Reacher nodded. Said nothing.

The old guy said, ‘It’s a terrible thing that happened to Mrs Salter.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you know who did it?’

‘Not yet. Did anyone call anything in?’

‘Like who?’

‘A neighbour, maybe. A shot was fired.’

‘Inside the house?’

‘In her library.’

The old guy shrugged. ‘Houses are far apart. Everyone has storm windows. Most of them are triple-glazed and on a night like this all of them are shut tight.’

Reacher said nothing.

The old guy asked, ‘Is it one of us?’

‘Why would it be?’

‘Chief Holland called a meeting. Just before the siren. Can’t see any other reason for it. Can’t see any other way of doing it, either. The lawyer, I mean, then Mr Peterson and now Mrs Salter. The three of them, fast and easy, just like that. It has to be one of us. And then you asked who was last in position tonight.’

‘Were you a cop?’

‘I was with this department thirty years.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’d like to get my hands on the guy.’

‘You spoke to him tonight. At some point. Either just before or just after.’

‘They all sounded normal to me.’

‘Do you know them well?’

‘Not the new guys.’

‘Was anybody particularly close with Mrs Salter?’

‘A lot of them were. She’s a fixture. Was a fixture.’

Seven miles up and four hundred miles south Plato’s cell phone rang again. The money he had taken from the Russian was hammering its way around the world. From one jurisdiction to another, shady and untraceable, an automated all-night trip that was scheduled to take seven hours in total. But it was always banking hours somewhere. The deposit flashed across a screen in Hong Kong and tripped a code that meant the account holder should be notified. So the clerk who saw it dialled a number that bounced through five separate call forwarding triggers before ringing out inside the Boeing high above Nebraska. Plato answered and listened without comment. He was already the richest man he had ever met. He always would be. He was Plato, and they weren’t. Not his parents, not the Russian, not his old associate Martinez, not anybody.

The bank clerk in Hong Kong hung up with Plato and dialled another number. Brooklyn, New York. After three in the morning over there, but the call was answered immediately, by the Russian, who was paying more than Plato was.

A lot more.

The clerk said, ‘I told him the money was in his account.’

The Russian said, ‘So now reverse the transaction.’

The clerk clicked and scrolled.

‘Done,’ he said.

The Russian said, ‘Thank you.’

From Brooklyn the Russian dialled Mexico City, a number deep inside a local law enforcement agency with a long name he couldn’t begin to translate. A colonel answered. The Russian told him that all was proceeding exactly according to plan.

The colonel said, ‘Plato is already in the air. He took off more than three hours ago.’

The Russian said, ‘I know.’

The colonel said, ‘I want fifteen per cent.’

The Russian went quiet for a moment. He pretended to be annoyed. He had promised ten per cent. A ninety-ten split was what had been discussed all along. But privately he had budgeted for eighty-twenty. Eighty per cent of Plato’s business had been his aim. To get eighty-five per cent would be an unexpected bonus. A free gift. The colonel was a shallow, unambitious man. Limited in every way. Which was why he was a colonel, and not a general.

The Russian said, ‘You drive a hard bargain.’

The colonel said, ‘Take it or leave it.’

‘You make it sound like I don’t have a choice.’

‘You don’t.’

A long silence, purely for effect.

‘OK,’ the Russian said. ‘You get fifteen per cent.’

The colonel said, ‘Thank you.’

The Russian hung up and dialled again, a number he knew belonged to an untraceable cell currently located on a night table in a Virginia bedroom. After three in the morning down there, the same as Brooklyn. The same time zone. The untraceable cell belonged to a tame DEA agent who belonged to the Russian’s cousin’s friend’s brother-in-law. The guy answered in Virginia and the Russian told him all was going exactly according to plan.

The guy asked, ‘Do I have your word?’

The Russian smiled to himself. Office politics at their very best. The cousin’s friend’s brother-in-law’s bent DEA guy had overruled Plato’s bent DEA guy and had agreed that the Russian could take over the rest of Plato’s U.S. operations just as long as he didn’t take the government meth out of the hole in the ground in South Dakota. In fact if the government meth could just disappear altogether, then so much the better. Too embarrassing all around. Embarrassing that it was still there, embarrassing that it had been forgotten about, embarrassing that it even existed at all. Even bent guys had departmental loyalties.