Lee Child - The Hard Way

“Shut up now,” Burke said.

He leaned to his right and hit a button on the Samsung.

“Hello?” he said.

“Good evening,” a voice said back, so slowly and carefully and mechanically that it made four separate words out of two. Like: Good-Eve-Ven-Ing .

It was a hell of a voice. It was completely amazing. It was so heavily processed that there would be no chance of recognizing it again without the electronic machine. The machines were commercial items sold in spy stores. Reacher had seen them. They clamped over the telephone mouthpiece. On one side was a microphone, which was backed by circuit boards, and then came a small crude loudspeaker. Battery powered. There were rotary dials that shaped the sound. Zero to ten, for various different parameters. The dials on this machine must have been cranked all the way to eleven. The high frequencies were entirely missing. The low tones had been scooped out and turned around and reconstituted. They boomed and thumped like an irregular heartbeat. There was a phase effect that hissed and roared on every drawn breath and made the voice sound like it was hurtling through outer space. There was a metallic pulse that came and went. It sounded like a sheet of heavy steel being hit with a hammer. The volume was set very high. Over the BMW’s ten speakers the voice sounded huge and alien. Gigantic. Like a direct connection to a nightmare.

“Who am I speaking with?” it asked, slowly.

“The driver,” Burke said. “The guy with the money.”

“I want your name,” the voice said.

Burke said, “My name is Burke.”

The nightmare voice asked, “Who’s that in the car with you?”

“There’s nobody in the car with me,” Burke said. “I’m all alone.”

“Are you lying?”

“No, I’m not lying,” Burke said.

Reacher figured there might be a lie detector hooked up to the other end of the phone. Probably a simple device sold in the same kind of spy stores as the distortion machines. Plastic boxes, green lights and red lights. They were supposed to be able to detect the kind of voice stress that comes with lying. Reacher replayed Burke’s answers in his head and figured they would pass muster. It would be a crude machine and Delta soldiers were taught to beat better tests than a person could buy retail on Madison Avenue. And after a second it was clear that the box had indeed lit up green because the nightmare voice just went ahead calmly and asked, “Where are you now, Mr. Burke?”

“Fifty-seventh Street,” Burke said. “I’m heading west. I’m about to get on the West Side Highway.”

“You’re a long way from where I want you.”

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

“Where do you want me?”

“Take the highway, if that’s what you prefer. Go south.”

“Give me time,” Burke said. “Traffic is real bad.”

“Worried?”

“How would you feel?”

“Stay on the line,” the voice said.

The sound of distorted breathing filled the car. It was slow and deep. Unworried , Reacher thought. A patient person, in control, in command, safe somewhere . He felt the car sprint and hook left. Onto the highway through a yellow light , he thought. Take care, Burke. A traffic stop could be real awkward tonight .

“I’m on the highway now,” Burke said. “Heading south.”

“Keep going,” the voice said. Then it lapsed back to breathing. There was an audio compressor somewhere in the chain. Either in the voice machine itself or in the BMW’s stereo. The breathing started out quiet and then ramped up slowly until it was roaring in Reacher’s ears. The whole car was filled with it. It felt like being inside a lung.

Then the breathing stopped and the voice asked, “How’s the traffic?”

“Lots of red lights,” Burke said.

“Keep going.”

Reacher tried to follow the route in his head. He knew there were plenty of lights between 57th Street and 34th Street. The Passenger Ship Terminal, the Intrepid , the Lincoln Tunnel approaches.

“I’m at Forty-second Street now,” Burke said.

Reacher thought: Are you talking to me? Or the voice ?

“Keep going,” the voice said.

“Is Mrs. Lane OK?” Burke asked.

“She’s fine.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“No.”

“Is Jade OK, too?”

“Don’t worry about either one of them. Just keep on driving.”

American , Reacher thought. For sure . Behind the wall of distortion he could hear the inflections of a native speaker. Reacher had heard more than his share of foreign accents, but this wasn’t one of them.

“I’m at the Javits now,” Burke said.

“Just keep going,” the voice said back.

Young , Reacher thought. Or at least not old . All the dirt and grit in the voice came from the electronic circuitry, not from the effects of age. Not a big guy , Reacher thought. The booming bass was artificial. There was a speed and a lightness there. No big chest cavity. Or, maybe a fat guy . Maybe one of those fat guys who have high-pitched voices.

“How much farther?” Burke asked.

“You low on gas?” the voice asked.

“No.”

“So what do you care?”

The breathing came back, slow and steady. Not close yet , Reacher thought.

“Coming up on Twenty-fourth Street,” Burke said.

“Keep going.”

The Village , Reacher thought. We’re going back to Greenwich Village . The car was moving faster now. Most of the left turns into the West Village were blocked off, so there were fewer lights. And most of the traffic would be going north, not south. A clear run, relatively speaking. Reacher craned his neck and got an angle through the rear side window. He could see buildings with the evening sun reflected in their windows. They flashed past in a dizzy kaleidoscope.

The voice asked, “Where are you now?”

“Perry,” Burke said.

“Keep going. But stand by now.”

Getting close , Reacher thought. Houston? Are we going to take Houston Street ? Then he thought: Stand by now? That’s a military term. But is it exclusively military? Is this guy ex-military, too? Or not? Is he a civilian? A wannabe ?

“Morton Street,” Burke said.

“Left turn in three blocks,” the voice said. “On Houston.”

He knows New York City , Reacher thought. He knows that Houston is three blocks south of Morton and he knows you say it House-ton, not like the place in Texas .

“OK,” Burke said.

Reacher felt the car slow. It stopped. It waited and inched forward. Then it sprinted to catch the light. Reacher rolled heavily against the rear seat.

“East on Houston now,” Burke said.

“Keep going,” the voice said.

The traffic on Houston was slow. Cobblestones, stop signs, potholes, lights. Reacher paced it out in his head. Washington Street, Greenwich Street, Hudson Street. Then Varick, where he had come up out of the subway for his fruitless morning vigil. The car bounced over patches of frost heave and thumped into dips.

“Sixth Avenue next,” Burke said.

The voice said, “Take it.”

Burke turned left. Reacher craned his neck again and saw the apartments above his new favorite café.

The voice said, “Get in the right-hand lane. Now.”

Burke dabbed the brake hard and Reacher jolted forward and hit the front seat. He heard the turn signal click. Then the car jumped right. And slowed.

The voice said, “You’ll see your target on the right. The green Jaguar. From the first morning. Exactly halfway up the block. On the right.”

“I already see it,” Burke said.