Lee Child - One Shot

He made it all the way down the wide straight cross-street and turned south toward the raised highway. Retracing his steps. He passed through the shadows under the highway and headed for the vacant lot on the next corner. Kept close to the wall. Made the turn.

Then the wall fell on him.

At least that was what it felt like. He was hit a staggering blow from behind and he fell to his knees and his vision went dark. Then he was hit again and his lights went out and he pitched forward on his face. Last thing he felt before he lost consciousness was a hand in his pocket, stealing his cell phone.

Reacher headed back under the highway with the cell phone warm in his hand. He leaned his shoulder against a concrete pillar as wide as a motel room and slid around it until his body was in the shadow and his hands were in the light from a lamp on a pole far above him. He took out the torn card with Emerson’s numbers on it and dialed his cell.

“Yes?” Emerson said.

“Guess who?” Reacher said.

“This isn’t a game, Reacher.”

“Only because you’re losing.”

Emerson said nothing.

“How easy am I to find?” Reacher asked.

No reply.

“Got a pen and paper?”

“Of course I do.”

“So listen up,” Reacher said. “And take notes.” He recited the plate numbers from the two Cadillacs. “My guess is one of those cars was in the garage before Friday, leaving the cone. You should trace the plates, check the tapes, ask some questions. You’ll find some kind of an organization with at least six men. I heard some names. Raskin and Sokolov, who seem to be low-level guys. Then Chenko and Vladimir. Vladimir looks good for the guy who killed the girl. He’s as big as a house. Then there’s some kind of a lieutenant whose name I didn’t get. He’s about sixty and has an old spinal injury. He talked to his boss and referred to him as the Zec.”

“Those are Russian names.”

“You think?”

“Except Zec. What kind of a name is Zec?”

“It’s not Zec. It’s the Zec. It’s a word. A word, being used as a name.”

“What does it mean?”

“Look it up. Read some history books.”

There was a pause. The sound of writing.

“You should come in,” Emerson said. “Talk to me face-to-face.”

“Not yet,” Reacher said. “Do your job and I’ll think about it.”

“I am doing my job. I’m hunting a fugitive. You killed that girl. Not some guy whose name you claim you heard, as big as a house.”

“One more thing,” Reacher said. “I think the guy called Chenko also goes by the name of Charlie and is James Barr’s friend.”

“Why?”

“The description. Small guy, dark, with black hair that sticks up like a brush.”

“James Barr has got a Russian friend? Not according to our inquiries.”

“Like I said, do your job.”

“We’re doing it. Nobody mentioned a Russian friend.”

“He sounds American. I think he was involved with what happened on Friday, which means maybe this whole crew was involved.”

“Involved how?”

“I don’t know. But I plan to find out. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“You’ll be in jail tomorrow.”

“Like I’m in jail now? Dream on, Emerson.”

“Where are you?”

“Close by,” Reacher said. “Sleep well, Detective.”

He clicked the phone off and put Emerson’s number back in his pocket and took out Helen Rodin’s. Dialed it and moved around the concrete pillar into deep shadow.

“Yes?” Helen Rodin said.

“This is Reacher.”

“Are you OK? The cop is right outside my door now.”

“Suits me,” Reacher said. “Suits him too, I expect. He’s probably getting forty bucks an hour for the overtime.”

“They put your face on the six o’clock news. It’s a big story.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Where are you?”

“Free and clear. Making progress. I saw Charlie. I gave Emerson his plate number. Are you making progress?”

“Not really. All I’ve got is five random names. No reason I can see why anybody told James Barr to shoot any one of them.”

“You need Franklin. You need research.”

“I can’t afford Franklin.”

“I want you to find that address in Kentucky for me.”

“Kentucky?”

“Where James Barr went to shoot.”

Reacher heard her juggle the phone and flip through paper. Then she came back and read out an address. It meant nothing to Reacher. A road, a town, a state, a zip.

“What’s Kentucky got to do with anything?” Helen asked.

Reacher heard a car on the street. Close by, to his left, fat tires rolling slow. He slid around the pillar and looked. A PD prowl car, crawling, lights off. Two cops in the front, craning their necks, looking right, looking left.

“Got to go,” he said. He clicked the phone off and put it on the ground at the base of the pillar. Emerson’s caller ID would have trapped the number and any cell phone’s physical location could be tracked by the recognition pulse that it sends to the network, once every fifteen seconds, regular as clockwork. So Reacher left the phone in the dirt and headed west, forty feet below the raised roadbed.

Ten minutes later he was opposite the back of the black glass tower, in the shadows under the highway, facing the vehicle ramp. There was an empty cop car parked on the curb. It looked still and cold. Settled. Like it had been there for a spell. The guy outside Helen’s door , Reacher thought. He crossed the street and walked down the ramp. Into the underground garage. The concrete was all painted dirty white and there were fluorescent tubes blazing every fifteen feet. There were pools of light and pools of darkness. Reacher felt like he was walking out of the wings across a succession of brightly-lit stages. The ceiling was low. There were fat square pillars holding up the building. The service core was in the center. The whole space was cold and silent and about forty yards deep and maybe three times as wide.

Forty yards deep.

Just like the new extension on First Street. Reacher stepped over and put his back against the front wall. Walked all the way across to the back wall. Thirty-five paces . He turned like a swimmer at the end of a lap and walked back. Thirty-five paces . He crossed diagonally to the far corner. The garage was dark back there. He threaded between two NBC vans and found the blue Ford Mustang he guessed belonged to Ann Yanni. It was clean and shiny. Recently waxed. It had small windows, because of the convertible top. A raked windshield. Tinted glass.

He tried the passenger door. Locked. He moved around the hood and tried the driver’s door. The handle moved. Unlocked. He glanced around and opened the door.

No alarm.

He reached inside and touched the unlock button. There was a triple thunk as both door locks and the trunk lock unlatched. He closed the driver’s door and stepped back to the trunk. The spare tire was under the floor. Nested inside the wheel were the jack and a length of metal pipe that both worked the jack and undid the wheel nuts. He took the pipe out and closed the trunk. Stepped around to the passenger side and opened the door and got inside the car.

The interior smelled of perfume and coffee. He opened the glove box and found a stack of road maps and a small leather folder the size of a purse diary. Inside the folder were an insurance slip and an auto registration, both made out to Ms. Janine Lorna Ann Yanni at a local Indiana address. He put the folder away again and closed the glove box. Found the right levers and lowered his seat as far as it would go. He reclined the back all the way, which wasn’t far. Then he moved the whole seat backward to give himself as much legroom as he could get. He untucked his shirt and rested the pipe in his lap and lay back in the seat. Stretched. He had about three hours to wait. He tried to sleep. Sleep when you can was the old army rule.