Lee Child - Night School

A keyboard pattered.

There was a pause.

“Yes, sir,” was the answer. “A deposit was made.”

Wiley said nothing.

“Would you like to know the amount?”

Wiley said yes.

“One hundred million U.S. dollars and no cents.”

Wiley said, “There’s a plan in place.”

“I see that, sir. The project in Argentina. Shall we execute immediately?”

“Yes,” Wiley said.

He closed his eyes.

His place.

Visible from outer space.

Little Horace Wiley.

He opened his eyes, and he hung up the phone, and then he walked back the way he had come.

–

In Zurich the messenger came out of the bank, through a glossy but anonymous door, to the street, where she walked to the corner and flagged down a cab. She settled in the back seat and said in carefully practiced German, “The airport, please. International departures. Lufthansa to Hamburg.”

The driver started his meter and pulled out into traffic.

–

Dremmler had gotten the rental van’s plate number from Muller, which enabled a friend at a Mercedes-Benz dealership to trace its security code through its vehicle identification number, which enabled another friend at an auto parts store to make a duplicate ignition key. Which Dremmler gave to a third friend, one of a team of two assembled for the occasion. They were both big men, both competent, both resourceful. They had been in the army. Now one was a motorcycle mechanic. The other worked security for visiting Russians.

“The traffic cop at the bridge is mine,” Dremmler said. “As far as he’s concerned you’re invisible. He’s like a blind man. But even so, don’t push your luck. Get in and out real fast. You know where to find it, and you know where to take it afterward. Any questions?”

The guy with the key said, “What’s in it?”

“Something that will bring us great power,” Dremmler said, which he figured was vague, but probably true.

–

They found a traffic division black-and-white parked ahead of the boxy metal bridge. The guy inside rolled down his window and told them nothing had passed, either coming or going. No trucks, no vans, no cars, no bikes, and no one on foot. No traffic at all. Reacher asked Griezman to tell the guy to block the road with his car if he saw a panel van coming. Probably white, and probably with the plate number it was born with, but neither thing was definite. It could have been repainted or otherwise disguised. Better safe than sorry. Any kind of a panel van, the guy should block the travel lanes and ask questions later.

Griezman asked why.

Reacher said to get the job done before NATO got its finger in the pie. Which he figured Griezman would interpret as a chance for individual glory and recognition. Maybe the guy wanted to run for mayor one day.

Griezman told the traffic cop what to do.

Reacher said, “Let’s go take a look around.”

Griezman drove down the street, with the cobblestones pattering under his tires, then across the boxy metal bridge, its deck humming and ringing, then more cobbles, and then a choice of two main ways to explore the place from nearest to farthest. One was the wharf itself, and the other was an arterial route set back from the water.

“Which way?” Griezman said.

“The back street,” Reacher said.

There were signs of life here and there. A guy was welding a sports car in a garage with its doors propped open. Another guy had an electronics store. But overall the tide was out. That was clear. From nearest to farthest was two miles exactly, and the number of bustling enterprises could be counted on the fingers of two hands.

Griezman said, “Should we go back now and look at the middle third?”

Reacher nodded.

He said, “I think that’s what Wiley did.”

Griezman threaded through a loading bay, and drove back on the wharf. Technically the middle third would be more than a thousand yards long. Two-thirds of a mile. About the same amount deep. Like the business district of a decent-sized city.

Wiley was in there somewhere.

Griezman said, “Where do you wish to start?”

“Think about it from his point of view. He’s got a van to hide. What does he see? Where does he go?”

Griezman slowed, and then turned between two warehouses, on a narrow street that broadened out into a yard, flanked left and right by storehouses with narrow wooden doors.

“Not here,” Reacher said. “For whatever reason he rented a second van. Which tells us he had somewhere to put it. By accident or design he rented a place with room for two. So it’s not a solid door with an inquiries number tacked to it. It’s a pair of solid doors with an inquiries number tacked to one of them.”

Of which there were many. Some notices were old and faded. They inspired no confidence. Some were crisp and new. But other than head back to the office and try them all out there was no way of knowing which numbers were live, and which were not. Reacher looked around as they drove, and pictured the map he had seen, on Griezman’s office table, on the brittle archive paper, dense with ink, crowded with detail.

He said, “Wiley grew up in Texas. How does he feel about driving in Europe?”

“Not great,” Sinclair said. “It’s narrow and awkward and the turns are too tight.”

“We should add that feeling to the list. He had to maneuver a commercial vehicle. He didn’t want to feel trapped or boxed in. I think he rented on one of the wider streets.”

Of which there were a significant number. They repeated, like an architectural plan. Some side streets were wide, too. For heavier wagons and larger loads. Griezman stopped in one of them. He said, “This could take forever.”

Reacher said, “We have forever. As long as your traffic cop stays awake.”

“He will.”

“We could add one last factor. I think he changed the locks. Or added new. This was a very big deal.”

So Griezman set off again, slowly, quartering the neighborhood, and all four on board craned their necks, looking for solid double doors, with a plausible phone number attached, and maneuvering room out front, and new locks.

–

The messenger was once again in the immigration line at the Hamburg airport. The same four booths were operational, still two for the European Union, and two for outside. She was using the same Pakistani passport. But this time she was dressed in black and her hair was down. She could see her reflection in the glass. She had been told not to worry if she got the same guy. He wouldn’t remember. He saw a million people every day.

She moved up, from third in line to second.

–

From the back of the car Reacher saw a phone booth on a corner. He said, “I need to make a call.”

Griezman pulled over and Reacher got out. He dialed the consulate room. Vanderbilt answered. Reacher asked him if Orozco had gotten there yet. Vanderbilt said yes, and put him on the line. Orozco said, “I’m standing by, boss.”

Reacher said, “You should do it now. We have an active roadblock here. Either way the deal is not going to happen. Sooner or later they’ll know it.”

“Have you found him yet?”

“We’re close.”

“Pretty good so far. Like flying.”

“You bet,” Reacher said.

He hung up the phone and stood in the silence. He could hear Griezman’s Mercedes behind him, idling at the curb. He could hear a faint penumbra of noise from the city, a mile away, and a ship’s horn far down the river. Closer by he could hear a compressor running somewhere. Maybe someone was spraying paint. There were occasional engine noises, in the middle distance, as if things were being hauled back and forth.

Not totally dead.

Wiley was in there somewhere.