A Wanted Man, Page 31

  dollars and no credit cards and a seven-month-old Nebraska driver’s licence. It was made out to Delfuenso at the address Reacher had visited. She was forty-one years old. There was an emery board for her fingernails, and a steakhouse toothpick still in its paper wrapper, and seventy-one cents in loose coins, and a ballpoint pen, and a house key on a chain with a crystal pendant.

  He saw the pack of aspirins. There was no bottle of water. There was nothing large and heavy except a bible. A hardcover King James version, smaller than an encyclopedia, bigger than a novel. Fairly thick. Dark red cardboard on the front, dark red cardboard on the back. Gold printing on the spine, gold printing on the front. Holy Bible. It looked like it didn’t get much use. It looked like it hadn’t been opened very often.

  In fact it was impossible to open. The pages were all crinkled and gummed together, by some kind of yellowish fluid, dried long ago. A spillage, possibly. Inside the bag. Pineapple juice, maybe, or orange. Or grapefruit. Something like that. Something sugary. A small carton with a straw, or a drinking cup for the kid, dumped in there and overturned.

  So why keep the bible? Was there a taboo against trashing damaged bibles and replacing them? Reacher didn’t know. He was no kind of a theologian.

  It was very heavy, for a book.

  He used his nails and tried to separate the front cover from the first endpaper page. Not possible. It was gummed solid. Evenly, and uniformly. Reacher pictured the spilled juice, pulsing out around the hole for the straw or through the spout of the cup, flooding the bag, soaking the good book evenly and uniformly.

  Not possible.

  Spilled juice would leave a random stain, probably large, but it wouldn’t cover the whole book equally. Some part of it would be untouched. What got wet would swell, and the rest would stay the same. Reacher had seen books in that condition. Frozen pipes, bloodstains. Damage was never uniform.

  He used one of Delfuenso’s combs and forced it end-on between the pages. He slid it up and down and levered it back and forth until he had made two fingertip-sized recesses in the pulp. Then he put the book spine-down on the vanity counter and bent over and hooked his nails in the recesses and jerked left and right.

  Paper tore and the book fell open.

  Everything from Exodus to Jude had been hollowed out with a razor. A custom-shaped cavity had been created. Very neat work. The cavity was roughly rectangular, maybe seven inches by six, maybe two inches deep. Not much of the paper had been left at the top and the bottom and the sides of the book. Hence the glue. Walls had been built, thin but solid. The whole thing was like a jewellery box with its lid stuck shut.

  But it contained no jewellery.

  The cavity was shaped and sized and contoured specifically for its current contents, which were a Glock 19 automatic pistol, and an Apple cellular telephone with matching charger, and a slim ID wallet.

  The Glock 19 was a compact version of the familiar Glock 17. Four-inch barrel, smaller and lighter all around. Often considered a better fit for a woman’s hand.

  Always considered easier to conceal.

  It was loaded with eighteen nine-millimetre Parabellums, seventeen in the magazine and one in the chamber, ready to go. No manual safety on a Glock. Point and shoot.

  The phone was switched off. Just a blank screen on the front, and a shiny black casing on the back, with a silver apple, partly bitten. Reacher had no idea how to turn the phone on. There would be a button somewhere, or a combination of buttons, to be pressed in sequence or held down for a certain small number of seconds. The charger was a neat white cube, very small, with blades for an outlet, and a long white wire tipped with a complex rectangular plug.

  The ID wallet was made of fine black leather. Reacher flipped it open. It was like a tiny book in itself. The left-hand page was a coloured engraving of a shield. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The right-hand page was a photo ID. Delfuenso’s face was on it. A little pale from the flash, a little green from fluorescent tubes overhead. But it was her. The picture was overlapped with an official seal. Department of Justice again. Holographic. The words Federal Bureau of Investigation ran side to side across the whole width of the card.

  Special Agent Karen Delfuenso.

  Reacher repacked the cavity and squeezed the covers down over the damage he had caused. He carried the book in his hand, slow and quiet past the sleeping girl, out through the door, towards the two women still huddled ten feet away. Sorenson was talking inanely, just burning time, and Delfuenso was looking a little exasperated and impatient with her. They both heard the scuff of Reacher’s boots on the concrete. They both turned towards him.

  Reacher raised the bible and said, ‘Let us pray.’

  SIXTY

  THEY LEFT LUCY sleeping alone. Delfuenso thought it was safe enough. The whole place was secure, and she said the kid wasn’t the type who woke up in the night scared or disoriented. They went to Sorenson’s room, which was number nine. Closer than Reacher’s. Sorenson hadn’t been in it yet. She hadn’t gotten that far. She had been on her way to open it up when Reacher had called out to her in the dark.

  She unlocked her door with her key and all three of them stepped inside. Reacher saw an identical version of his own billet. Two armchairs, a queen bed, two neat piles of clothing, but the feminine selection, the same as Delfuenso was wearing. No doubt the bathroom was equally provisioned with lotions and potions and towels.

  Delfuenso sat down in an armchair and Reacher handed her the bible. She cradled it in her lap, with both hands on it, like it was a purse and she was afraid of bag snatchers. Sorenson sat on the bed. Her room, her entitlement. Reacher took the second armchair.

  He said, ‘Obviously I have a million questions.’

  Delfuenso said, ‘You’ve put us all in a very difficult situation. You should have left my bag alone. What you did was almost certainly illegal.’

  Reacher said, ‘Grow up.’

  Sorenson looked at Delfuenso and asked, ‘Didn’t they search you here? Or on the way here?’

  Delfuenso said, ‘No, they didn’t.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Reacher said. ‘Not even a little bit.’

  ‘Then that’s a serious deficiency,’ Sorenson said. ‘Wouldn’t you agree? I thought Kansas City was supposed to be good at this stuff.’

  Delfuenso shrugged. ‘I was playing the part of the random helpless victim, so I’m not surprised they gave me a pass. They should have searched Reacher, though. His position was never very clear.’

  ‘Kansas City doesn’t know who you are?’ Reacher asked.

  ‘Of course they don’t,’ Delfuenso said. ‘Or I wouldn’t be here in their damn prison camp, would I?’

  ‘So who are you?’

  ‘That’s not something I’m willing to discuss.’

  ‘Did King and McQueen come in south from the Interstate? To the old pumping station?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Because it’s the key fact here.’

  ‘No, they came north out of Kansas.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘They were driven. By an accomplice.’

  ‘Had they been there before? To that crossroads?’

  ‘Has anyone?’

  ‘So they never saw Sin City. They didn’t know anything about it. They didn’t know they could jack a car there. But still, that’s where they went. Why?’

  Delfuenso didn’t answer.

  Reacher said, ‘Because you were McQueen’s emergency contact. That’s why. In case things went wrong. But you weren’t put there by Kansas City. Because Kansas City doesn’t know who you are. So who put you there?’

  Delfuenso didn’t answer.

  Reacher said, ‘Someone else put you there, obviously. Someone higher up the food chain, clearly, to be going over Kansas City’s head in secret. I’m guessing the Hoover Building. Some big cheese in a suit, all burdened down with worries.’

  Delfuenso said nothing.

  Reacher said, ‘Which begs the
question, what exactly was the nature of those worries?’

  Delfuenso said, ‘Were you really a military cop?’

  Reacher didn’t answer.

  Sorenson said, ‘Yes, he was. I’ve seen his file. He was decorated six times. Silver Star, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Soldier’s Medal, Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart.’

  ‘We all got medals,’ Reacher said. ‘Don’t read too much into it.’

  Delfuenso said, ‘There’s a problem with Kansas City.’

  Reacher said, ‘What kind of a problem?’

  ‘Poor performance.’

  ‘How poor?’

  ‘They’re getting people killed.’

  Delfuenso ran it down for them. She spoke for ten minutes straight. The central region was always busy. There were valuable targets within its jurisdiction. Important civilian infrastructure, and military establishments, including factory sites. There was always terrorist chatter, too, both domestic and foreign, on the Internet, some of which was aimed at that infrastructure and those establishments and factories. Most of which was fantasy dreaming or empty boasts or idle wouldn’t-that-be-cool speculation. But some of it was real. Enough of it to worry about, anyway.

  So the Kansas City boys went proactive, and got into a sequence of four undercover penetrations. They got agents inside four separate targets. The operations were textbook smooth at the beginning. Then they fell apart. None of them produced intelligence. Two of them produced dead undercover agents.

  But still. Notwithstanding. The central region was always busy. The Internet chatter never let up. Then one day there was a new voice. It talked about liquid measure of some kind. Gallons, hundreds of gallons, thousands of gallons. With a regular emphasis on Nebraska’s water table. No one knew what any of it meant. No one could decipher any specific intent. But the chatter intensified daily. Thousands of gallons, hundreds of thousands, millions of gallons, and eventually tens of millions.

  So a fifth undercover operation was planned. The new voice was contacted by a lone federal dissident entirely invented by Kansas City. The federal dissident offered to join forces with the new voice and help. Background questions were asked, and answers were invented. Bona fides were established. After a long and cautious delay the new voice agreed to meet with the federal dissident. And so the operation came slowly to life.

  But at the same time an operation-within-an-operation had been planned by the Hoover Building. Like spying on the spies. Under the guise of a routine higher-level review it had been suggested that Kansas City bring in an agent entirely unknown in the Midwest. For the undercover position. In theory, for extra safety and security. In reality, the Hoover Building wanted a guaranteed reliable man at the heart of the operation. The name they put forward was Special Agent Donald McQueen, most recently of the San Diego field office.

  And as a backstop and as an on-the-ground observer they moved Karen Delfuenso from the main counterterrorism unit in D.C. They moved her in secret. The whole nine yards, like witness protection. She rented a house. She got a job. Her kid came with her and enrolled in school.

  ‘That’s a big deal,’ Sorenson said. ‘Were you happy with that?’

  ‘Happy enough,’ Delfuenso said. ‘You know how it is. We go where we’re told. And I like moving around. I want Lucy to see something of the world.’

  ‘Did she know why you were moving?’

  ‘Not specifically. Only generically. She knows I have a gun and a badge. But she doesn’t ask questions. She’s used to it.’

  ‘But she could have blown your cover. She could have talked in school.’

  ‘And said what? Mommy’s got a gun? Every mommy in Nebraska has a gun. Or mommy’s a secret agent? All kids make up stories like that. It’s expected. Especially when their mommy is really a cocktail waitress, half naked from the waist up all night long.’

  Then Delfuenso went on with the story. McQueen made contact early on. He played it slow and careful and built up trust and credibility. The new voice turned out to be a medium-sized group of white Americans in an uneasy alliance with a medium-sized group of foreigners from the Middle East. The group called itself Wadiah. Its leader was a man with a code name of his own, and so far McQueen had been denied access to him. The foreigners from the Middle East were thought to be Syrians.

  ‘What’s their aim?’ Reacher asked.

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ Delfuenso said.

  ‘That’s a weird ethnic mixture.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Is McQueen going to be OK?’

  ‘That depends on whether you’re a glass-half-full type of guy, or a glass-half-empty. They lost two out of four so far. So on the face of it his odds are about fifty-fifty.’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘Which is why some big cheese in a suit was all burdened down with worries.’

  ‘And that’s without him having to explain what happened to King.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Delfuenso said.

  Sorenson made tea with a plug-in kettle from a cupboard and water from the bathroom. She brought it over on a tray. Reacher thanked her but looked at Delfuenso and asked, ‘Why did you do all that blinking in the car?’

  Delfuenso took her tea and asked back, ‘Did I have you fooled?’

  ‘Totally. I thought you were a random victim. Brave and smart, for sure, but regular-person brave and smart, not law enforcement.’

  ‘And that’s exactly what I needed you to think. McQueen knew who I was, obviously, but King didn’t. So I had to play a part for him. I had to play a part all night, in fact, because it was pretty obvious I was going to end up face to face with either Wadiah or the Kansas City FBI. And neither one of them could be allowed to know who I was.’

  ‘I get that. I know you had to act a part. But you didn’t have to blink.’

  ‘My aim was to get out of there as fast as I could. The sooner the better. By any means available. So I thought if I enlisted you I might get out quicker. You looked like a capable guy. I thought you might get the chance to stage something along the way. But you didn’t. So sure enough I ended up face to face with the Kansas City boys, who put me in here, because I played my part so well they think I’m nobody.’

  ‘So what really happened last night?’

  ‘You saw most of it.’

  ‘But not all of it. And I didn’t understand any of it. And I’m interested in the conversation you had with McQueen after he shot King in the heart. You must have had at least half an hour alone with him, before you were picked up.’

  ‘Closer to forty minutes. And it wasn’t McQueen who shot King in the heart. He passed me his gun around the seat. I told you different because I was still playing the part back then. Also I made up all that stuff about screaming and wailing.’

  ‘So what really happened last night?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Reacher shrugged.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think either King or McQueen was carrying the knife. Too big for a suit pocket. There was nothing in their hands. I suppose one of them could have had it strapped to his forearm, but that seems unlikely. I think the other guy had it. And I think he was always planning to use it. He was unzipping his coat as he walked into the bunker.’

  ‘You spoke to the eyewitness.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll deny it. He’s following the rules. For the free beer.’

  Delfuenso said, ‘These things are always co-productions. King and McQueen went on behalf of Wadiah to meet with some other guy appearing on behalf of some other group. Funding, probably, or some other kind of cooperation. Or logistics. Or supply. It was supposed to be a love-in. The plan was King and McQueen should get a ride there, and then the new guy would take them onward to his HQ. Like a ritual dance. But it went to rat shit immediately. The new guy started shouting something at them and then he pulled out a knife and tried to kill them. McQueen disarmed him.’

  ‘And broke his arm in the process.’

  ‘Di
d he?’

  Sorenson said, ‘The medical examiner told us. At lunchtime today.’

  Reacher said, ‘And then what?’

  Delfuenso said, ‘And then McQueen killed the guy. In self defence. Almost a reflex.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Reacher said. ‘He killed him to shut him up. The guy was shouting. Who knew what he was going to say next? Too big a risk to take. Could be the guy is based in San Diego and he’s seen McQueen going in and out of the FBI building there. And McQueen wouldn’t want King to hear that.’

  ‘It was a justifiable homicide.’

  ‘Did he do it well?’

  ‘Is that your benchmark for justifiable?’

  ‘Style points can help. If the decision is close.’

  ‘I don’t know how well he did it.’

  ‘I do,’ Sorenson said. ‘I saw the body. And he did it pretty well. Lateral slash on the forehead to blind the guy, and the knife up under the ribs, like one, two.’

  ‘Happy now?’ Delfuenso asked.