Lee Child - Never Go Back

‘Young girls? Young boys? Orphans?’

‘Look at it from Emal Zadran’s point of view. He was a screw-up and a failure, but he rehabilitated himself. He earned some respect in his community. How? Someone gave him a role, that’s how. As an entrepreneur again, most likely. Someone wanted to buy or sell, and Zadran became the go-to guy. Because he knew the right people. He had connections already in place. Maybe crucial relationships, maybe just by chance.’

Espin said, ‘Buy or sell what?’

Reacher said. ‘We’ll figure that out in D.C. Right after you wave us goodbye, either standing up or sitting down.’

They slept the rest of the way. The cabin was warm, and the chairs were comfortable, and the motion was soothing. Reacher dreamed about the girl, at a much younger age, maybe three, chubby not bony, dressed in the same outfit but miniaturized, with tiny laceless tennis shoes. They were walking on a street somewhere, her small hand soft and warm in his giant paw, her little legs going like crazy, trying to keep up, and he was glancing over his shoulder all the time, anxious about something, worried about how she was going to run if she had to, in her laceless shoes, and then realizing he could just scoop her up in his arms, and run for her, maybe for ever, her fragrant weightless body no burden at all, and relief flooded through him, and the dream faded away, as if its job was done.

Then the air pressure changed and the steward started up with the stuff about seat backs and tray tables and upright positions. Espin glanced across the aisle, and Reacher and Turner glanced back at him. The coin was in the air, right then. The guy was deciding. Was he a drone, or was he ahead of the curve? Fifty-fifty, Reacher thought, like everything else in the world.

Then they were on approach, the big plane suddenly heavy and ponderous again, and as soon as the crew members had taken their seats everyone turned on their phones, and Reacher saw he had a voice-mail message from Major Sullivan, an hour old. He called it up and heard some static, and then, ‘Confirming no action will be taken against you for any matters arising out of either of the phony affidavits. So you’re in the clear, as of now. But Major Turner is still considered a legitimate fugitive. Her situation is the same as it always was. So the clock will start ticking all over again, the moment you touch down. You’ll be seen as aiding and abetting. You’ll be an accessory to a very serious felony. Unless you walk away from her in the airport. Which I strongly suggest you do, speaking as your lawyer.’

He deleted the message, and dialled Edmonds. She answered, and he asked, ‘Where were Scully and Montague seven years ago?’

She said, ‘I’ll try to find out.’

And then the plane touched down, and the clock started ticking.

SIXTY-FIVE

FIRST ON MEANT first off, too, and the official door at the end of the jet bridge was still closed when they got there. Time zones meant it was very late on the East Coast. Reacher pushed the door and scanned ahead. There was a thin crowd at the gate. Not as bad as Long Beach. Maybe only ten undercover MPs and ten FBI agents inside the first thirty feet alone. Reacher held the door and let Espin go first, and he watched him very carefully. But Espin looked for no one in particular, and he made no eye contact with anyone, and he made no furtive signs or gestures. He just moved through the crowd like a regular person. Reacher and Turner followed after him, and a minute later they all regrouped in a yard of clear space, in the corridor under the baggage claim sign, and Reacher said, ‘You go on ahead. We’re going to stay here.’

Espin said, ‘Why?’

‘In case you put your guys the other side of security.’

‘There are no guys.’

‘We’ll stay here anyway.’

‘Why?’

‘Tactical considerations.’

‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours.’

‘You’ll never find us.’

‘I found you in LA. And there’s bait here too. I’ll know where to look.’

‘You should concentrate on Morgan.’

‘Twenty-four hours,’ Espin said, and then he walked away.

Reacher and Turner watched him go, and Reacher said, ‘Let’s get coffee.’

Turner said, ‘Are we staying here?’

Reacher looked at the arrivals board, and said, ‘It would make some kind of sense. Next in is American, in about two hours. Shrago’s bound to be on it. And from the airplane door to the other side of security, he’s bound to be unarmed. So this would be the place to hit him.’

‘Are we going to?’

‘No, but I wanted to put the idea in Espin’s head. In case he gets cold feet an hour from now. He’ll assume we’re still here. But we won’t be. We’ll get the coffee to go. We’ll be right behind him.’

In Reacher’s experience every successful venture in Washington D.C. had one indispensable thing in common, which was a sound base of operations. But such a place could not be bought with cash. Any kind of a decent hotel was going to need a credit card. Which meant either Margaret Vega was going to pay, or they were going to tell Gabriel Montague where they were staying. Turner was in favour of telling him, so Shrago would show up, so they could deal with him. Reacher disagreed.

She said, ‘Why?’

‘If they send Shrago to our location, and he disappears, they’re going to know what happened to him.’

‘Obviously.’

‘I don’t want them to know what happened to him. I want them uncertain. For as long as humanly possible. I want them not knowing. I want them staring into the void, hoping for a sign.’

‘This is why we need more women officers. For us it’s enough to win. For you, the other guy has to know he lost.’

‘I want them to keep their cell phones switched on. That’s all. It might be the only way we prove this for sure. It might be the only way we find them in the first place. Shrago needs to disappear somewhere unknown, and we have to get the numbers out of his phone, and then Sergeant Leach needs to hit up a whole different bunch of friends, and we need to find those phones before they finally give up on Shrago and switch them off.’

So Margaret Vega paid for a night on the twelfth floor of a very nice hotel with a view of the White House, in a room that had everything they needed, and plenty they didn’t. Turner wanted to get clothes, but it was midnight and nothing was open. So they showered long and slow and wrapped up in robes about two inches thick, and then they sat and ticked away the time until they figured it was twenty minutes before Shrago’s plane would go wheels-down across the river. At which point they got dressed again, and went out.

Romeo called Juliet and said, ‘I kept a flag on the Margaret Vega card, just in case Turner went shopping on her own, and it just bought a night in a hotel here in town.’

Juliet said, ‘Shrago’s phone will be on again about two minutes from now.’

‘Tell him not to take a cab straight there.’

They saw Shrago come out of the terminal. They were in a cab, twenty yards away. The cab was sixteen feet long and six feet wide, but it was invisible. It was a cab at an airport. Shrago didn’t see it. He just waited in line behind one other person, and got in a cab of his own.

‘That’s the guy,’ Reacher said.

‘I see him,’ the driver said. The meter was still running from the ride from the hotel. Plus a hundred-dollar tip. Plus another hundred for the fun of it. That was the deal. It wasn’t their money.

The driver eased off the kerb and stayed about fifty yards behind Shrago’s cab. Which headed for the heart of town, over the bridge and straight on to 14th Street, and across the Mall and through the Federal Triangle. Then it crossed New York Avenue and stopped.