Карин Слотер - Cleaning the Gold

“As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.” She rocked back in the chair again. Her jacket had bunched up. Will saw the corner of a white envelope peeking out of the inside breast pocket.

The USB drive.

“Playtime is over, gentlemen.” Lukather's clipped tone said there was no room for discussion. “Dave, make sure my POV is filled with gas. Reacher, Wolfe, you'll be in the vaults until your shift ends. From the vault, you will go directly to your hotel rooms, where you'll be confined to quarters until twenty minutes prior to the start of your shift tomorrow morning, at which point you will both report to the hotel lobby where you will be escorted back to the vault to continue your work. Once that work is completed, God willing by tomorrow night, neither one of your asses will ever step foot on my base again. Is that clear?”

No one answered.

She straightened her jacket. The envelope disappeared. “I need a ‘Yes, ma'am' from every dick-swinger in this room.”

Their combined response was a harmony of resignation and contempt. “Yes, ma'am.”

Trent and Reacher went back to the vault. They got back to work. Clink, clink. A fast rhythm. Her best workers .

Will said, “The USB drive was still in the envelope. The envelope was in her inside jacket pocket. I saw the corner. I couldn't get near it without being accused of assault.”

“What was on it?” Reacher said.

“I don't know. I just told you, I couldn't get near it.”

“Speculate,” Reacher said. “Purely as a mental exercise. Pretend you're a police officer. Make yourself think like a detective.”

“Data.”

“About what?”

“I don't know.”

“To do with the loans, or separate?”

“Separate,” Will said. “If it was an electronic copy of the accounts, it would have been in the same envelope as the percentage cut.”

“Excellent,” Reacher said. “You're pretty good at this. You should think about taking it up for a living.”

“Thank you.”

“So what kind of separate thing could it be?”

“Something secret, I guess.”

“For what purpose?”

“To sell, I suppose. She's clearly corrupt. She told you she's planning to retire. Maybe she wants a nest egg.”

“What kind of secret?”

Will said, “Well, at Fort Knox, I guess there's an obvious answer.”

“Except Baldani supplies the thumb drive. How could he? Lukather must know more about the security here. She's the CO. This is the Army. I guarantee Lukather knows a level Baldani doesn't. So the USB isn't Fort Knox security. It's some other secret, that Baldani supplies from below. Which might narrow it down a bit.”

They worked on for a minute. Clink, clink .

Reacher said, “Where will she sell it?”

Will said, “What's a POV?”

“A privately-owned vehicle.”

“Then somewhere far away. She told Baldani to gas it up.”

“When will she sell it?”

“I think as soon as she can. She kept it in her inside jacket pocket. Which feels very guarded, in an intimate way, but also temporary. Like it's precious, but it won't be in there for long.”

They worked another minute. Clink, clink .

Reacher said, “We'll finish this job tomorrow.”

“That's why she let us stay. You were right.”

“We'll be off the base. If we want to know what she's doing, we have to find out tonight.”

“Do we want?”

“This thing could last forever. I hate long engagements. Better to nail her tonight.”

“Better for you.”

“When do you guys want to do it? Tonight's the night, surely. We can catch her red-handed. Continue the mental exercise. Pretend you're a law enforcement officer of some kind, pretending not to be. You would agree we need to act fast.”

“If I was a law enforcement officer, I would probably point out we have no legal means of achieving these objectives. We're confined to quarters tonight, and we have no vehicle, not to mention no warrant or even jurisdiction.”

“This is Kentucky,” Reacher said. “I'm sure there's some kind of overriding doctrine.”

“She'll put a guard on the hotel.”

“Two, I'm sure. One front, one back. We're going to need both of them.”

They ate an early dinner in the hotel, Reacher somewhat dutifully, in obedience to his motto, which said eat when you can, because you never knew the next chance. By comparison, Trent ate eagerly. Reacher formed the impression he had been hungry at one time in his life. Maybe as a boy.

Then they stepped out back. The sentry was an MP two-striper, in the new battledress uniform, a pistol on his belt, a cap on his head, an amiable expression on his face, almost jocular, as if there was no us and them, just all soldiers together, and the sentry bullshit was just a formality, like a charade.

Reacher hit him under the chin with a right-hand uppercut. Then he took his gun. Then he wrapped the guy up with duct tape from a service closet. Will Trent didn't like it. A cop for sure. Maybe a human rights lawyer.

Then Reacher walked back through the lobby and did the same thing with the front sentry. Two guns now. Then he stole their car. A drab green Charger, fully loaded. He got right in and started it up. Trent stayed about nine feet away. They spoke through the window.

Reacher said, “There's a Supreme Court ruling. They call it imperfect necessity. It can be okay to commit a small crime to stop a big crime.”

“Can be?”

“I'm sure it depends. These people are lawyers. They want to keep working.”

Trent didn't answer.

“I'm going now,” Reacher said. “I can't afford to miss her.”

Trent got in.

Lukather left the base thirty minutes later. Just as dusk was falling. But not only her. Baldani was riding shotgun. And right behind was a whole separate car full of four big men. Then came Reacher, with Trent riding shotgun, a hundred yards back, in a drab green car, which was a color chosen mostly for cheapness, but it was cheap because there was a lot of it available, like economy of scale, and there was a lot of it available because over many decades no other color had ever worked better for merging into the background, especially at dusk. Therefore easy surveillance. It was a part of the country with long roads that led nowhere else. Traffic could hang together for hours. The MP car was a peach. Full of gas, great GPS, shotguns in the trunk, huge amounts of nine-millimeter ammunition.

Will said, “My price estimate keeps going up. She's driving a very long distance, with four heavies to protect her. Therefore she's got something very valuable. Which means her contact will be someone way up the ladder.”

“Interested now?” Reacher said.

“As a mental exercise.”

“If her contact is way up the ladder, he'll have heavies of his own. It's a status thing. If she's bringing four, he's going to have five or more.”

“We won't get close.”

“I agree there will be an element of challenge.”

Just before the trip turned over a hundred miles, Lukather pulled over into a gravel lot, in front of a roadhouse bar. The chase car pulled in after her. Reacher coasted on, to the next building in view, maybe three hundred yards away, which turned out to be a surplus store, that sold pretty much anything you wanted, as long as you wanted it in camouflage colors. It was closed. Reacher parked there and they walked back.

The roadhouse bar was a commercial operation. Open to all. Except not really. One of those places. The only way Lukather could have felt comfortable walking in was to have five guys with her. Even Reacher would have gotten hard stares. Which he would have returned, which they might have returned again, because it was that kind of place, and after that it would be all about numbers. Altogether safer to stay outside and look in through the windows.