Get Back Jack (6 page)

She wished she could see Reacher’s face up close, though. And hear him speak. She’d never heard his voice. She’d seen him move on videotape once and she replayed the video in her mind.

At this point, she knew she would recognize Reacher in a dark alley when he was completely shadowed. But if she could meet him, study him, she would memorize his smell, his gestures, his voice timbre and cadence and syntax.

Did he have an accent? What kind? Was his voice gravelly and rough? Or smooth? What did the texture of his skin say about his physical activities? His hands were the size of shovels, but were they roughened by heavy work? Or softened by disuse? Did he have good teeth? She’d never seen him smile broadly. Army dental records suggested he’d had the usual cavities for a kid before Fluoride became ubiquitous. Had he worn braces? Have an overbite? A lisp?

She heard herself sigh and felt her shoulders sag with fatigue and disappointment. The problem was the same as it always was with this assignment. She just did not know enough, and she was battling on two fronts that she simply could not control. One, acquire more data. Two, face Reacher.

Preferably in that order.

The server approached with more coffee, which both Kim and Gaspar accepted. “Would you like dessert? We have terrific pie.”

Kim looked down. She’d finished the last of her chowder without realizing she’d eaten it all. “No. Thank you.”

Gaspar said, “Sure. Apple? With ice cream?”

The server collected the empty chowder bowls and before she hurried away said, “Coming right up.”

Gaspar rested his forearms on the table and leaned toward her. “Figure everything out yet?”

“It would help tremendously if we knew why the Boss wants Reacher’s file completed.”

“No kidding.”

She knew the Boss well. He had a reason for this assignment and the reason wouldn’t necessarily be kosher. Which was okay. It was the not knowing that was not okay. Not knowing could get her killed. It almost had already.

“I was running the video we saw of Reacher head-butting that dude through my mind again,” she said. They’d been given only one opportunity to watch the video, without sound, before it was taken from them. But Kim could remember every frame as if the short video were running on a continuous loop in her head.

In her mind’s eye, she saw Reacher hitchhiking along the deserted country road. She watched as he caught a ride in a small sedan driven by an attractive young woman with a young boy in the car. The woman was distracted by the child and rear-ended a truck. The truck driver jumped out, pulled the woman from the car and attacked her. Reacher bolted from the vehicle and stopped the attacker with a quick, vicious head-butt. The attacker fell to the ground and cracked his skull on the pavement. Reacher left the scene, headed toward New York City.

Just two days ago.

“And?”

“Compared it to the first video we acquired.” Last week, they’d seen and studied a better quality video in Margrave, Georgia. A man they’d thought was Reacher impersonated a U.S. Marshall to break an inmate out of the local jail.

“And?” Gaspar asked again.

She shook her head slowly. “Definitely not Reacher on the Margrave video.”

“Because?”

She shared each comparison point slowly, even though she felt confident in her conclusions. The knowledge might save both their lives. “Reacher’s taller, broader, looser limbed. His posture’s better and his hands are bigger. Gestures more contained and defined. No wasted motions.”

The server brought Gaspar’s pie, a piece big enough to feed Kim for a week. Then she refilled their coffee mugs and left them alone.

Gaspar dug into the pie like a man who hadn’t eaten in decades. His appetite amused and amazed Kim every time she witnessed it. If she ate in one month the amount of calories he consumed in one meal, she’d be as big as one of her mother’s Buddha statues.

As it always did, her mind returned to Reacher. He was starting to feel very familiar to her, even though she had uncovered only a limited number of data points. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

In a moment of unanticipated confrontation, such familiarity might save her life, or cost it. Impossible to tell in advance.

But when there’s only one choice, it’s the right choice.

The only thing she could do was keep working on the puzzle, one interlocking piece after another, until she could see the entire picture. When would that happen?

“Any flashes of brilliance over there, Sunshine?” Gaspar asked, talking around his mouthful of pie and ice cream, as if she’d solved their knotty problems when he knew damn well they’d acquired precisely nothing of use this entire, miserable day.

She smirked. “Absolutely. I figure Reacher will be joining us for dinner three days from now at 7:32 p.m. at the Capital Grille in Chicago.”

Gaspar’s right eyebrow shot up in a perfect demonstration of his quizzical nature. As if she’d been dead serious, he swallowed and replied, “I’ve got fifty bucks that says you’re right.”

She laughed out loud, which, strangely enough, made her feel a bit more normal. Finally.

“Is Dixon with Reacher?” Kim asked.

“Too many variables to hypothesize at this point, don’t you think?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Like what?”

“Probably two and maybe three of Reacher’s special unit left, and we can’t find even one of them. It’s not normal.”

“There is nothing normal about this entire assignment. We established that a long while back, Sunshine.”

“This is beyond abnormal.”

“How so?”

“Nine soldiers survive long stints and tough jobs in the Army. They get out and survive a long while. Later, in no special order, one disappears off the planet and five are dead, none by natural causes.”

“As far as we know,” Gaspar reminded.

“Right.”

“Like I said, it’s beyond abnormal. Weird, in fact. Outside of Mafia crime families and gang wars, I can’t think of any reason why that many members of a single group of any kind would find themselves in this situation. Can you?”

He seemed to consider her question and finally said, “No.”

“Right,” she said again. “If we have any prayer of learning anything useful about Reacher from his Army buddies, our last clear chance is Frances Neagley in Chicago.”

“And we need to get to her before she ends up dead or missing, too.”

“So you agree that Reacher’s on his way and has a three-day head start, then?”

Gaspar shrugged. “Who knows if he’s with Dixon or Neagley, neither or both?”

Too many mysteries, unanswered questions, unbelievable situations. All of them revolved around Reacher. That was the only part lacking surprise.

The server came back with the coffee pot, the check, and unwelcome if not surprising news. “You folks aren’t flying anywhere tonight, are you? Just heard they’ve closed the airports until tomorrow morning. A big jet slid off the runway and they’ve got a mess with cleaning that up in addition to the sleet storm.”

Kim didn’t even bother complaining. Sometimes, it just wasn’t worth the effort.

She pulled out her phone and pressed the redial on the number for the Grand Hyatt Hotel to confirm the tentative reservations she’d already made. Before she could make the connection, her screen reflected a new message from H. Silver, with attachments.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Thursday, November 11

8:55 p.m.

New York City

While Gaspar completed the paperwork for check-in at the hotel, Kim found a small shop at Grand Central geared to travelers, where she bought two phone chargers, deodorant, and a T-shirt to sleep in. They’d rely upon the hotel to supply the remaining necessities. While Gaspar rebooked their flight back to DC for the morning and sent his clothes to the laundry service, Kim had also stopped at the business center to print the three photos Silver had forwarded before joining Gaspar in his room.

Kim handed one phone charger and the three printed photos to Gaspar. He studied them while she rooted around the room until she found an empty outlet behind the television.

Gaspar studied the messenger’s photo. “Friendly-looking fellow,” he said.

After a few pretzel-like contortions, she connected the second charger to her smartphone, which had depleted its final gasp of reserve battery power downstairs when she downloaded Silver’s photos.

The room’s Asian decor suited her size better than his. Courtesy of her German-American father, Kim was all lithe, lanky, and stubborn blonde, but only on the inside. Outside, she was shy of five feet tall and just as shy of 100 pounds, courtesy of her Vietnamese mother. The combination was seldom ideal. This hotel room furniture was a rare exception. She couldn’t be blamed for savoring it, could she?

She plopped down in the room’s only chair. Gaspar had stretched out on the grey leather divan, which barely accommodated his length. Wearing the hotel’s skimpy robe, he looked uncomfortably cramped. She noticed him wince every time his weight shifted to his right side.

“Great cover, isn’t it?” he said, holding the photo of the messenger up to her. She’d examined it on the way upstairs. It was a surprisingly clear full-face headshot, almost as if the messenger had posed for it. She’d already committed his face to memory. Brown hair. Dark eyes. Freckles. Big smile. Friendly-looking, indeed.

Gaspar spent more time with the second and third photos. These, too, were clear for surveillance cameras, though the two subjects were obscured. They’d either been lucky, which was unlikely. Or they’d expertly avoided clean headshots, which meant this couple was worth investigating.

“One of these shots was taken in the lobby and the other in the elevator,” Gaspar said. “Not even an ear is exposed.”

Kim mentally reviewed both photos. The man and woman stood close together. She was looking down, wearing a scarf covering her head, and sunglasses. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and an overcoat with its collar up. His face was turned away from the cameras, which had captured only the back and side of his head under the hat.

“Notice the time stamps,” she said.

“The messenger’s first visit was quite a while back. It’s stamped October 3, 9:16 a.m. For the couple, less than forty-eight hours after O’Donnell was killed. Monday, November 8, 14:32 p.m. and 14:36 p.m. Guess these two didn’t spend much time with Silver in the lobby, did they?”

Kim had noticed that, too. “Why do you think that is?”

Gaspar glanced up. “They must have done what we did. Given him ID he felt comfortable with. Wonder what that was?”

“And if the messenger is somehow involved with this couple or with Dixon’s disappearance, he’s been running his game for weeks. That suggests a certain level of sinister we hadn’t expected,” she said, thinking out loud.

“But he could be just a messenger,” Gaspar suggested. “Dixon’s stop could be on his route. Maybe he ran from you today because of something unrelated to Dixon.”

She’d rejected this possibility hours ago, on the sidewalk when she’d seen the alarm in his eyes at the moment he noticed she’d recognized him. “Because I’m so big and scary, you mean?”

He grinned. “Well, you’ve got a scary gun and you were chasing the guy, after all.”

She’d have punched him if he wasn’t all the way across the room. Instead, she slouched as if he couldn’t rile her with foolishness.

Gaspar asked, “Is this all Silver sent? No photos of the pair going in and out of Dixon’s apartment? No elevator or lobby departure shots? No timeline or anything?”

“Dunno. My battery ran out of juice before I could check. But Silver included the names and contact information they gave him. Video, too. We’ll be able to download it shortly when my phone is working again. I don’t want to rearrange the furniture to look at it while it’s charging, do you?”

He said, “Maybe the video will at least show us something about their body sizes. No rush. Let’s rethink this a bit while we wait. The glue holding everything together is Reacher’s old army unit. What do we know about them?”

Kim agreed they’d had very little opportunity to compare notes and analyze what they’d learned so far. “Not as much as we need to know.”

“Right.”

She gave up her pout and straightened up in the chair as she recounted the early facts. “Stanley Lowery was the first one to die. Alleged car accident victim, quite a while ago. His obituary said he was one of those back-to-the-earth types. Moved to Big Sky Country to raise sheep. There was a valid Montana death certificate.”

“He got hit by a truck,” Gaspar reminded her. “And nothing to suggest Reacher was around at the time or had any motive, let alone caused Lowery’s death. Let that one go.”

She wasn’t willing to accept the easy answer, but for now she simply nodded. “Okay, chronologically, who died next?”

Gaspar said, “Couple of years later, Tony Swan, Manuel Orozco, and Calvin Franz all confirmed dead under fairly suspicious circumstances within a few days of each other. Maybe in that order, but it’s hard to know based on the information we’ve got.”

He waited a moment, as if they had not digested and disagreed over this data before. Kim waited until Gaspar filled the silence. “I suppose it’s prudent to list those three as potential Reacher victims, but the idea doesn’t sit right with me.”

Kim felt the same way, but she wanted to hear Gaspar’s take on it. Gaspar was the closest thing to Reacher’s mindset she could get for now. On paper, Gaspar and Reacher’s resumes were similar until they both left the Army. And they shared that Y chromosome thing. She had three brothers and had worked around men all her life, but male-think often confounded her. She’d be a fool not to exploit Gaspar’s thinking. “Because?”

He wagged his head back and forth slowly as if it might help him to work out the kinks in his thinking. “Reacher was an Army officer. West Point graduate, no less. Not only that, a military cop. Hunting down U.S. Army-trained killers and bringing them back for court martial is a tough, tough gig. I know. I’ve done it. And Reacher chose his own team. Each of these soldiers must have saved Reacher’s ass dozens of times. And vice-versa.”