Lee Child - Tripwire

“Spencer Gutman,” a bright voice said. “How may we help you?”

“Mrs. Jacob, please,” Reacher said, busily.

“One moment,” the voice said.

There was tinny music and then a man’s voice. He sounded quick, but deferential. Maybe an assistant.

“Mrs. Jacob, please,” Reacher said again.

The guy sounded busy and harrassed. “She already left for Garrison, and I really don’t know when she’ll be in the office again, I’m afraid.”

“Do you have her address in Garrison?”

“Hers?” the guy said, surprised. “Or his?”

Reacher paused and listened to the surprise and took a chance.

“His, I mean. I seem to have lost it.”

“Just as well you did,” the voice said back. “It was misprinted, I’m afraid. I must have redirected at least fifty people this morning.”

He recited an address, apparently from memory. Garrison, New York, a town about sixty miles up the Hudson River, more or less exactly opposite West Point, where Reacher had spent four long years.

“I think you’ll have to hurry,” the guy said.

“Yes, I will,” Reacher said, and hung up, confused.

He closed the database and left the screen blank. Took one more glance at the missing secretary’s abandoned bag and caught one more breath of her perfume as he left the room.

THE SECRETARY DIED five minutes after she gave up Mrs. Jacob’s identity, which was about five minutes after Hobie started in on her with his hook. They were in the executive bathroom inside the office suite on the eighty-eighth floor. It was an ideal location. Spacious, sixteen feet square, way too big for a bathroom. Some expensive decorator had put shiny gray granite tiling over all six surfaces, walls and floor and ceiling. There was a big shower stall, with a clear plastic curtain on a stainless steel rail. The rail was Italian, grossly overspecified for the task of holding up a clear plastic curtain. Hobie had discovered it could take the weight of an unconscious human, handcuffed to it by the wrists. Time to time, heavier people than the secretary had hung there, while he asked them urgent questions or persuaded them as to the wisdom of some particular course of action.

The only problem was soundproofing. He was pretty sure it was OK. It was a solid building. Each of the Twin Towers weighs more than half a million tons. Plenty of steel and concrete, good thick walls. And he had no inquisitive neighbors. Most of the suites on eighty-eight were leased by trade missions from small obscure foreign nations, and their skeleton staffs spent most of their time up at the UN. Same situation on eighty-seven and eighty-nine. That was why he was where he was. But Hobie was a man who never took an extra risk if he could avoid it. Hence the duct tape. Before starting, he always lined up some six-inch strips, stuck temporarily to the tiling. One of them would go over the mouth. When whoever it was started nodding wildly, eyes bulging, he would tear off the strip and wait for the answer. Any screaming, he would slam the next strip on and go to work again. Normally he got the answer he wanted after the second strip came off.

Then the tiled floor allowed a simple sluicing operation. Set the shower running hard, throw a few bucketfuls of water around, get busy with a mop, and the place was safe again as fast as water drains down eighty-eight floors and away into the sewers. Not that Hobie ever did the mopping himself. A mop needs two hands. The second young guy was doing the mopping, with his expensive pants rolled up and his socks and shoes off. Hobie was outside at his desk, talking to the first young guy.

“I’ll get Mrs. Jacob’s address, you’ll bring her to me, OK?”

“Sure,” the guy said. “What about this one?”

He nodded toward the bathroom door. Hobie followed his glance.

“Wait until tonight,” he said. “Put some of her clothes back on, take her down to the boat. Dump her a couple of miles out in the bay.”

“She’s likely to wash back in,” the guy said. “Couple of days.”

Hobie shrugged.

“I don’t care,” he said. “Couple of days, she’ll be all bloated up. They’ll figure she fell off a motorboat. Injuries like that, they’ll put it down to propeller damage.”

THE COVERT HABIT had advantages, but it also had problems. Best way to get up to Garrison in a hurry would be to grab a rental car and head straight out. But a guy who chooses not to use credit cards and won’t carry a driver’s license loses that option. So Reacher was back in a cab, heading for Grand Central. He was pretty sure the Hudson Line ran a train up there. He guessed commuters sometimes lived as far north as that. If not, the big Amtraks that ran up to Albany and Canada might stop there.

He paid off the cab and pushed through the crowd to the doors. Down the long ramp and out into the giant concourse. He glanced around and craned his head to read the departures screen. Tried to recall the geography. Croton-Harmon trains were no good. They terminated way too far south. He needed Poughkeepsie at the minimum. He scanned down the list. Nothing doing. No trains out of there inside the next hour and a half that would get him to Garrison.

THEY DID IT the usual way. One of them rode ninety floors down to the underground loading bay and found an empty carton in the trash pile. Refrigerator cartons were best, or soda machines, but once he’d done it with the box from a thirty-five-inch color television. This time, he found a filing cabinet carton. He used a janitor’s trolley from the loading ramp and wheeled it into the freight elevator. Rode with it back up to the eighty-eighth floor.

The other guy was zipping her into a body bag in the bathroom. They folded it into the carton and used the remaining duct tape to secure the carton shut. Then they hefted it back on the trolley and headed for the elevator once more. This time, they rode down to the parking garage. Wheeled the box over to the black Suburban. Counted to three and heaved it into the back. Slammed the tailgate shut and clicked the lock. Walked away and glanced back. Deep tints on the windows, dark garage, no problem.

“You know what?” the first guy said. “We fold the seat down, we’ll get Mrs. Jacob in there along with her. Do it all in one trip, tonight. I don’t like going on that boat any more times than I have to.”

“OK,” the second guy said. “Were there more boxes?”

“That was the best one. Depends if Mrs. Jacob is big or small, I guess.”

“Depends if she’s finished by tonight.”

“You got any doubts on that score? The mood he’s in today?”

They strolled together to a different slot and unlocked a black Chevy Tahoe. Little brother to the Suburban, but still a giant vehicle.

“So where is she?” the second guy asked.

“A town called Garrison,” the first guy said. “Straight up the Hudson, a ways past Sing Sing. An hour, hour and a half.”

The Tahoe backed out of the slot and squealed its tires on its way around the garage. Bumped up the ramp into the sunshine and headed out to West Street, where it made a right and accelerated north.

WEST STREET BECOMES Eleventh Avenue right opposite Pier 56, where the westbound traffic spills out of Fourteenth Street and turns north. The big black Tahoe was caught in the congestion and added its horn to the frustrated blasts cannoning off the high buildings and echoing out over the river. It crawled nine blocks and made a left at Twenty-third Street, then swung north again on Twelfth. It got above walking speed until it passed the back of the Javits Convention Center, and then it got jammed up again in the traffic pouring out of West Forty-second. Twelfth became the Miller Highway and it was still solid, all the way over the top of the huge messy acreage of the old rail yards. Then the Miller became the Henry Hudson Parkway. Still a slow road, but the Henry Hudson was technically Route 9A, which would become Route 9 up in Crotonville and take them all the way north to Garrison. A straight line, no turns anywhere, but they were still in Manhattan, stuck in Riverside Park, a whole half hour after setting out.