The Jack Reacher Cases (The Man Who Works Alone)

by Dan Ames

  “What’s that?” Pauling asked.

  “I don’t think Charles Tse was the mastermind.”

  “Wait a minute, how could he not be?” Tallon pointed out. “You’re the one who discovered his messages. It sounded like his plan.”

  “At first, I thought so. But do you know how I told you there were five people all together? Four men and one woman?”

  Pauling and Tallon waited for Collins to continue. He took another deep breath.

  “I recognized all of the men, but the woman was a bit of a mystery and at this point, I still don’t know her name. I only know the name of her company.”

  This time, it was Pauling who made the leap.

  “Zeta Corporation,” she said. “Goda Becher.”

  A look of surprise crossed Collins’ face.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Chapter 34

  “Remind me again what Zeta Corporation is,” Tallon said.

  Pauling and Collins looked at each other. Collins lifted his chin toward Pauling indicating she should go first.

  “I first heard of Zeta when my former company announced they’d landed a huge account – Zeta – but provided almost no information on them. I started asking around and soon was invited out here to learn more. But no information was provided.”

  “Shocker,” Collins said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

  “And then at the meeting where we met,” she said to Collins, “I was introduced to Zeta’s CEO, Goda Becher. But I never got a chance to talk to her.”

  “That’s not her real name,” Collins said. “Check this out.” He’d pulled the computer keyboard closer to him and tapped out a series of commands. Soon, an image of the woman Pauling had been told was Zeta’s CEO filled the computer screen.”

  “Yep, that’s her,” Pauling said.

  “It is indeed. But her name isn’t Goda Becher. It’s Astrid Verplank. She’s a model, albeit not a supermodel by any means. She works mostly in Europe. Occasionally as an actress, too. Small parts mostly.”

  “So in this case, she was acting all right,” Tallon said. “Hired to pretend to be Zeta’s CEO.”

  “Which is why Torcher did such a thorough job of preventing me from speaking with her,” Pauling said. “He knew I would have sniffed out a phony right away.”

  “If she isn’t the CEO of Zeta Corporation, then who is?” Tallon asked.

  “That’s a great question,” Collins said. “I don’t have–”

  A line of code filled his screen and behind them, the servers kicked into overdrive. The lights went from a steady flashing to a rapid pulsation, along with a beeping sound that seemed to Tallon like an emergency. He hoped it was only a test.

  “Shit,” Collins said. “They hacked into my system. They know who I am.” His voice had risen an octave and Tallon saw the fear on his face.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Tallon said.

  “Charles just filed flight plans for Munich,” Collins said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “I set an alarm to track his movements. It’s not a coincidence they broke into my network and suddenly, he’s flying out of the country.”

  “Zeta is headquartered in Munich,” Pauling said. “He’s going to meet with her. The boss. Whoever she is.”

  “Seriously, we have to go–” Tallon started to say as he withdrew his pistol.

  His voice was cut short by the sound of automatic gunfire. Bullets pierced the steel storage unit door. There must have been more than one gunman because the fire kept up at a steady pace. Through the holes in the door, Tallon could see the night sky.

  Pauling and Tallon instinctively dove for cover.

  Collins turned toward the entrance to the unit.

  It was the last thing he did.

  A series of bullets stitched across his chest and shredded his upper torso. He was knocked backward, flipped over his chair and landed on the concrete floor. Blood gushed from his wounds and seeped around his body.

  “Follow me,” Tallon said to Pauling. He was belly crawling away from the door to the rear of the unit. There had to be an access panel. Somewhere for the cables and heat to go. Tallon noted there wasn’t a ceiling vent. It had to be in the back.

  More gunfire erupted from the front of the unit and Tallon heard an incredibly loud crash. They had driven a vehicle into the door. He glanced back and saw the door had been almost completely removed. Figures clad in black and armed with automatic weapons were charging inside.

  They had to figure a way out.

  Now.

  He looked ahead and saw he was right. There was a vent at the rear of the unit. It consisted of an air-conditioning unit and compressor along with a thick collection of cable running through it. Next to it was a built-in fan whirring silently.

  Tallon leaned back and kicked hard at the metal supporting the fan. It dented but hung in place.

  “Stand back,” Pauling said. Tallon ducked to the side and Pauling shot at the framework of the vent, focusing on the hinged corners. The thin metal, nothing more than aluminum, yielded easily to the bullets and holes appeared.

  Tallon kicked again and the whole vent along with the fan, compressor and cables fell outside the back wall.

  “Go,” Tallon said. He turned and fired back at the figures now rapidly approaching them.

  Pauling dove through the open square of metal and Tallon followed. He felt a jagged edge of torn aluminum rip open a gash in his thigh but he kept moving.

  Pauling fired at something to her right and Tallon saw that a man dressed in black had appeared, ostensibly to cut off their escape. He fired off a round that went wide as Pauling’s shot punched him in the chest. He dropped to the ground with his arms flung to the side.

  Tallon scooped up the dead man’s automatic rifle and tossed Pauling his keys.

  “Let me keep them busy while you get the car,” he said.

  She took off into the darkness and Tallon stepped back. He brought the rifle to bear and aimed through the opening. He waited. When the light changed and he saw a shadow enter the space he let loose a stream of gunfire into the opening. He heard shouts of pain and cursing and then bullets were punching through the aluminum.

  Tallon ran around to the front of the unit just as a figure emerged. Tallon fired a burst and the man was knocked backward.

  Tallon pivoted around the opening, the rifle at his shoulder.

  The men in back were now running forward to the opening. They were in single file.

  Tallon mowed them down with a steady stream of rifle fire, keeping the muzzle down so his shots didn’t go high.

  And then, just like that, it was silent.

  An engine revved and Pauling was behind him in the driver’s seat of his SUV.

  He dove into the passenger seat and they careened down the alleyway, crashed through the security gate and merged back onto the highway.

  Tallon looked at his leg. His pants were soaked in blood.

  “Are you shot?” Pauling asked, noticing his gaze.

  “No. I’m fine.” He looked out the window as Pauling steered the SUV onto the freeway.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  Her mouth formed a tight line.

  “Munich.”

  Chapter 35

  The woman standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows was well over six feet tall with broad shoulders and wide hips. She didn’t stand straight, however. Instead, she leaned on a cane.

  Munich, Germany, lay before her. The office in which she stood was on the top floor of a highly unusual, avant-garde structure hastily erected less than nine months ago.

  It suited her. What was old was new again. Just like her.

  Rebirth, in a sense.

  Or reincarnation.

  The old “her” was long gone.

  That woman’s name had been Gunnella Bohm. Head of the most secretive criminal organization in the world: the Zurich Collective. She’d helmed the group of the world’s biggest and most powerful people for nearly
a decade. Until she’d been blasted off the deck of a ship by an angry man with a shotgun.

  He’d underestimated her will to live, however. She’d survived. For now, the woman had not exacted her revenge on the man who’d shot her. Patience was a virtue. She enjoyed savoring thoughts on revenge almost as much as she enjoyed exacting it.

  No, for now, she was mostly concerned with regaining her wealth and power.

  Which is why she’d escaped Zurich, set up shop in Munich, and assumed the identity of a woman who shared her initials: Goda Becher. It was also why she called her new outfit the Zeta Corporation. It wasn’t a nod to her old firm but a message instead: she was going to replace the Collective with her new organization.

  By starting things off with a bang heard ‘round the world.

  Which brought her mind around to Charles Tse. Her poor, incompetent Asian genius.

  He was on his private plane to come and see her. To try to explain how he’d bungled things on his end.

  It didn’t matter.

  She would make it all better.

  Besides, he’d served his purpose. She had needed him to engineer the cooperation of the other Silicon Valley executives. The cream of the one-percenter crop. Like-minded individuals who shared a similar goal: wealth. The more, the better.

  At any cost.

  As long as the cost was someone else’s burden to bear.

  The woman turned and walked back to her desk. It stood nearly four and a half feet tall so she could work standing up. It was her way of getting stronger. Plus, she liked pain. Especially in the bedroom with subservient lovers. She employed pain at every opportunity in both her personal and professional lives.

  For the first time in a long while, she felt the old surge of excitement. It’s the emotion one feels when making a big, bold strategic move that could have enormous payoffs, combined with the element of disaster. The tightrope between mind-boggling success and brain-numbing defeat.

  With Charles Tse soon to be safe in her pocket, it was time to put the rest of the plan in place.

  Her fingers tingled with excitement as she tapped out a message on her highly encrypted phone.

  She hit send and knew that as soon as the message was delivered, the world would never be the same.

  Chapter 36

  WASHINGTON, DC

  He watched as the long black limousine pulled up to the restaurant. It was an exclusive Italian eatery less than twenty minutes from the Capitol and a frequent choice for high-ranking government officials. Washington’s elite, as they no doubt referred to themselves.

  A woman dressed in a blue power suit stepped out of the limousine flanked by her security detail. She went inside the restaurant joined by one of her security team. The driver of the limo parked the big vehicle in a valet space and then stood outside the vehicle. He would remain there until the woman was through with her meal.

  The man watching from the rooftop across the street knew what was going to unfold inside.

  The congresswoman would be immediately seated at her favorite table. It was in the back corner of the restaurant.

  She was legendary for power lunches and the man on the rooftop knew today would be no exception. He had been following the woman for more than two weeks and at this point, knew her schedule probably better than she did.

  He had a high-powered sniper rifle at his feet. It was probably overkill for this kind of shot, but it was always better to have a little extra firepower than not enough. You never knew what could happen.

  He’d rehearsed his movements and the minute she stepped out of the restaurant, she would be a dead woman.

  The congresswoman in question was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which made her a woman in high demand. Not just from her fellow politicians, but also lobbyists representing businesses who could potentially be severely impacted, in good ways and bad, by her decisions.

  The man on the rooftop had his own suspicions about who’d hired him to kill the congresswoman. He was fairly certain his employers had been, or would be, negatively impacted by actions taken in the woman’s duties.

  It didn’t matter to him.

  He’d just received the message he’d been waiting for.

  One word.

  Go.

  Chapter 37

  LONDON

  The woman in the rented flat waited for her lover. His last name was Graham and he was known far and wide as a champion of the people. In most circles, the moniker was uttered in sincerity. In others, it was said with wry amusement.

  It didn’t matter to her.

  She supposed that a man who forcefully spoke of the need to stand up for the “little people” ought not be unfaithful to his wife. Yet, history was replete with iconic figures known for their lofty achievements who hadn’t been above wrestling between the sheets with folks of the opposite gender and to whom they were not joined in holy matrimony.

  The woman in the flat wore her usual; a provocative dress with high heels and a single strand of pearls. No panties.

  Graham loved to twist the necklace in his hand when they were having rough sex. Another favorite activity of his that might register as a surprise among his loyal followers.

  Tonight, however, her outfit included a new accessory.

  A razor-sharp stiletto safely ensconced just below the line of her open-backed dress.

  She intended to have a rousing bit of sex with Graham, one in which she would no longer be submissive but instead, punish him for her own pleasure.

  And then she would perform the act for which she had been promised a very large sum of money.

  She would slit her lover’s throat.

  Chapter 38

  PARIS

  The car was a vintage Porsche. Rare, but not overly so. Its owner, a Frenchman, drove it every evening down to his favorite eatery; a corner bistro with a dazzling wine list and crusty bread.

  Now, the Porsche was in its preferred space in the garage. The man underneath the vehicle was not a mechanic.

  He was a bomb maker.

  At the moment, he was putting the finishing touches on the installation of one of his homemade devices. They were expensive to begin with. Even more so if they required the service of their creator.

  But the bomb maker had been given an extraordinarily large sum of money as a deposit, so he had accepted the job.

  He knew little about the Porsche’s owner, other than the fact that he ran a popular website espousing views in favor of the lower class and sharply targeting the excesses of the rich.

  Well, the bomb maker thought, perhaps when the Porsche’s owner was blown skyward to Heaven, he would be able to rest easy knowing his killer was a working man.

  No, the bomb maker thought. Probably not true. At that point, solace would be hard to come by, he guessed.

  Chapter 39

  MUNICH

  Gunnella Bohm’s back was hurting. She used the cane to cross her office, walk down the hall and enter a room with a single round white table that faced an oversized screen.

  She powered the screen on and her assistant, a young woman with dark skin and almond-shaped eyes appeared in the doorway.

  “Do you need my assistance?” she asked.

  “Yes. Others are arriving soon. Have coffee, water and champagne ready.”

  The assistant left and Bohm gazed at the screen.

  There were nearly a dozen small green lights on the screen representing targets whose elimination she had just authorized.

  When the green lights turned to red, it meant that particular objective had been neutralized.

  It was going to be immense fun.

  Not only would she be responsible for killing an American congresswoman, she would also rack up kills that included a member of British Parliament, a leader of the global liberal media and many more targets that collectively represented a powerful force for the poor in the world.

  Gunnella Bohm thought it would be a crowning achievement in her career.

  Afterwa
rd, she would enjoy a great deal of champagne, along with the slender assistant who’d just offered her assistance. She was new.

  Brand-spanking new, so to speak. The pun made Bohm smile.

  And Gunnella had yet to sample the assistant’s obvious wares.

  She licked her lips in anticipation.

  Chapter 40

  There was a Lufthansa flight direct from San Francisco to Munich. Pauling and Tallon were on it, thanks to Pauling’s uber elite American Express. It was made of a weird color Tallon had never seen.

  “He’s got a pretty big head start on us,” Pauling said.

  They were seated in business class. She was exhausted. There’d been virtually no time to change her clothes or even take a shower.

  “Yeah, there’s that,” Tallon said. He’d ordered himself a beer and was enjoying it very much, Pauling judged. “Why don’t you get some sleep?” he asked her.

  She took his advice and much later, she slowly came awake. Tallon was watching her. She smiled and asked, “Have you been awake this whole time?”

  He shrugged. “Off and on.”

  They talked about Collins, what the authorities might have in store for them when they got back.

  “It couldn’t be helped,” Tallon said of their decision to leave the crime scene and get a plane for Europe. “We’d be tied up in interrogations for days with our lawyers and the cops. Meanwhile, whatever is supposed to go down would be happening. We had to leave. Although I do feel bad about leaving Collins there.”

  Pauling agreed. “We have to find out what’s going on. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  They flew in silence until the plane landed and then they passed through customs and grabbed a rental car.

  Tallon drove as Pauling went through her phone. “When I had my researcher look into Zeta, he gave me an address that supposedly belonged to Zeta. Who knows if it’s real or not. Nothing’s been real about them so far.”