Lee Child - [Jack Reacher 01-16]

by Jack Reacher Series (epub)

  I jumped up from the desk and ran down to the basement. Wrenched open the dryer door and pulled my clothes out. Dressed hopping from foot to foot on the concrete floor. Left the towel where it fell. Ran back up to the kitchen. Loaded up my jacket with the things I was going to need. Ran outside, leaving the splintered door swinging. Ran over the gravel to the Bentley. Started it up and threaded it backward down the drive. Roared off down Beckman and squealed a left onto Main Street. Gunned it through the silent town and out beyond the diner. Howled another left onto the Warburton road and pushed the stately old car along as fast as I dared.

  The Bentley’s headlights were dim. Twenty-year-old design. The night was patchy. Dawn was hours away and the last of the trailing storm clouds were scudding across the moon. The road was never quite straight. The camber was off and the surface was lumpy. And slick with storm water. The old car was sliding and wallowing. So I cut the speed back to a cruise. Figured it was smarter to take an extra ten minutes than to go plowing off into a field. I didn’t want to join Joe. I didn’t want to be another Reacher brother who knew, but who was dead.

  I passed the copse of trees. It was just a darker patch against the dark sky. Miles away, I could see the perimeter lights of the prison. They were blazing out over the night landscape. I cruised past. Then for miles I could see their glow in the mirror, behind me. Then I was over the bridge, through Franklin, out of Georgia, into Alabama. I rushed past the old roadhouse Roscoe and I had been in. The Pond. It was closed up and dark. Another mile, I was at the motel. I left the motor running and ducked into the office to rouse the night guy.

  “You got a guest called Finlay here?” I asked him.

  He rubbed his eyes and looked at the register.

  “Eleven,” he said.

  The whole place had that night look on it. Slowed down and silent and asleep. I found Finlay’s cabin. Number eleven. His police Chevy was parked up outside. I made a lot of noise banging on his door. Had to keep banging for a while. Then I heard an irritated groan. Couldn’t make out any words. I banged some more.

  “Come on, Finlay,” I called.

  “Who’s there?” I heard him shout.

  “It’s Reacher,” I said. “Open the damn door.”

  There was a pause. Then the door opened. Finlay was standing there. I’d woken him up. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt and boxer shorts. I was amazed. I realized I had expected him to be sleeping in his tweed suit. With the mole-skin vest.

  “What the hell do you want?” he said.

  “Something to show you,” I told him.

  He stood yawning and blinking.

  “What the hell time is it?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Five o’clock, six, maybe. Get dressed. We’re going somewhere.”

  “Going where?” he said.

  “Atlanta,” I said. “Something to show you.”

  “What something?” he said. “Just tell me, can’t you?”

  “Get dressed, Finlay,” I said again. “Got to go.”

  He grunted, but he went to get dressed. Took him a while. Fifteen minutes, maybe. He disappeared into the bathroom. Went in there looking like a normal sort of a guy, just woken up. Came out looking like Finlay. Tweed suit and all.

  “OK,” he said. “This better be damn good, Reacher.”

  We went out into the night. I walked over to the car while he locked his cabin door. Then he joined me.

  “You driving?” he said.

  “Why?” I said. “You got a problem with that?”

  He looked irritable as hell. Glared at the gleaming Bentley.

  “Don’t like people driving me,” he said. “You want to let me drive?”

  “I don’t care who drives,” I said. “Just get in the damn car, will you?”

  He got in the driver’s side and I handed him the keys. I was happy enough to do that. I was very tired. He started the Bentley up and backed it out of the lot. Swung east. Settled in for the drive. He went fast. Faster than I had. He was a hell of a good driver.

  “SO WHAT’S GOING ON?” HE SAID TO ME.

  I looked across at him. I could see his eyes in the glow from the dash.

  “I figured it out,” I said. “I know what it’s all about.”

  He glanced back again.

  “So are you going to tell me?” he said.

  “Did you call Princeton?” I asked him.

  He grunted and slapped the Bentley’s wheel in irritation.

  “I was on the phone for an hour,” he said. “The guy knew a hell of a lot, but in the end he knew nothing at all.”

  “What did he tell you?” I asked him.

  “He gave me the whole thing,” he said. “He was a smart guy. History postgrad, working for Bartholomew. Turns out Bartholomew and the other guy, Kelstein, were the big noises in counterfeiting research. Joe had been using them for background.”

  I nodded across at him.

  “I got all that from Kelstein,” I said.

  He glanced over again. Still irritable.

  “So why are you asking me about it?” he said.

  “I want your conclusions,” I told him. “I want to see where you got to.”

  “We didn’t get to anywhere,” he said. “They all talked for a year and decided there was no way Kliner could be getting so much good paper.”

  “That’s exactly what Kelstein said,” I told him. “But I figured it out.”

  He glanced over at me again. Surprise on his face. In the far distance I could see the glow of the prison lights at Warburton.

  “So tell me about it,” he said.

  “Wake up and figure it out for yourself, Harvard guy,” I said.

  He grunted again. Still irritable. We drove on. We hurtled into the pool of light spilling from the prison fence. Passed by the prison approach. Then the fierce yellow glare was behind us.

  “So start me off with a clue, will you?” he said.

  “I’ll give you two clues,” I said. “The heading Joe used on his list. E Unum Pluribus. And then think about what’s unique about American currency.”

  He nodded. Thought about it. Drummed his long fingers on the wheel.

  “E Unum Pluribus,” he said. “It’s a reversal of the U.S. motto. So we can assume it means out of one comes many, right?”

  “Correct,” I said. “And what’s unique about American banknotes, compared to any other country in the world?”

  He thought about it. He was thinking about something so familiar he wasn’t spotting it. We drove on. Shot past the stand of trees on the left. Up ahead, a faint glimmer of dawn in the east.

  “What?” he said.

  “I’ve lived all over the world,” I said. “Six continents, if you count a brief spell in an air force weather hut in Antarctica. Dozens of countries. I’ve had lots of different sorts of paper money in my pocket. Yen, deutschmarks, pounds, lire, pesos, wons, francs, shekels, rupees. Now I’ve got dollars. What do I notice?”

  Finlay shrugged.

  “What?” he said.

  “Dollars are all the same size,” I said. “Fifties, hundreds, tens, twenties, fives and ones. All the same size. No other country I’ve seen does that. Anywhere else, the high-value notes are bigger than the small-value notes. There’s a progression, right? Anywhere else, the one is a small bill, the five is bigger, the ten is bigger and so on. The biggest value bills are usually great big sheets of paper. But American dollars are all the same size. The hundred-dollar bill is the same size as the one-dollar bill.”

  “So?” he asked.

  “So where are they getting their paper from?” I asked him.

  I waited. He glanced out of his window. Away from me. He wasn’t getting it and that was irritating him.

  “They’re buying it,” I said. “They’re buying the paper for a buck a sheet.”

  He sighed and gave me a look.

  “They’re not buying it, for God’s sake,” he said. “Bartholomew’s guy made that clear. It’s manufactured up in
Dalton and the whole operation is as tight as a fish’s asshole. They haven’t lost a single sheet in a hundred and twenty years. Nobody’s selling it off on the side, Reacher.”

  “Wrong, Finlay,” I said. “It’s for sale on the open market.”

  He grunted again. We drove on. Came to the turn onto the county road. Finlay slowed and swung left. Headed north toward the highway. Now the glimmer of dawn was on our right. It was getting stronger.

  “They’re scouring the country for one-dollar bills,” I said. “That was the role Hubble took over a year and a half ago. That used to be his job at the bank, cash management. He knew how to get hold of cash. So he arranged to obtain one-dollar bills from banks, malls, retail chains, supermarkets, racetracks, casinos, anywhere he could. It was a big job. They needed a lot of them. They’re using bank checks and wire transfers and bogus hundreds and they’re buying in genuine one-dollar bills from all over the U.S. About a ton a week.”

  Finlay stared across at me. Nodded. He was beginning to understand.

  “A ton a week?” he said. “How many is that?”

  “A ton in singles is a million dollars,” I said. “They need forty tons a year. Forty million dollars in singles.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “The trucks bring them down to Margrave,” I said. “From wherever Hubble sourced them. They come in to the warehouse.”

  Finlay nodded. He was catching on. He could see it.

  “Then they got shipped out again in the air conditioner cartons,” he said.

  “Correct,” I said. “Until a year ago. Until the Coast Guard stopped them. Nice new fresh boxes, probably ordered from some cardboard box factory two thousand miles away. They packed them up, sealed them with tape, shipped them out. But they used to count them first, before shipping them.”

  He nodded again.

  “To keep the books straight,” he said. “But how the hell do you count a ton of dollar bills a week?”

  “They weighed them,” I said. “Every time they filled a box, they stuck it on a scale and weighed it. With singles, an ounce is worth thirty bucks. A pound is worth four hundred and eighty. I read about all that last night. They weighed it, they calculated the value, then they wrote the amount on the side of the box.”

  “How do you know?” he said.

  “The serial numbers,” I said. “Showed how much money was in the box.”

  Finlay smiled a rueful smile.

  “OK,” he said. “Then the boxes went to Jacksonville Beach, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Got put on a boat,” I said. “Got taken down to Venezuela.”

  Then we fell silent. We were approaching the warehouse complex up at the top of the old county road. It loomed up on our left like the center of our universe. The metal siding reflected the pale dawn. Finlay slowed. We looked over at the place. Our heads swiveled around as we drove past. Then we swung up the ramp onto the highway. Headed north for Atlanta. Finlay mashed the pedal and the stately old car hummed along faster.

  “What’s in Venezuela?” I asked him.

  He shrugged across at me.

  “Lots of things, right?” he said.

  “Kliner’s chemical works,” I said. “It relocated there after the EPA problem.”

  “So?” he said.

  “So what does it do?” I asked him. “What’s that chemical plant for?”

  “Something to do with cotton,” he said.

  “Right,” I said. “Involving sodium hydroxide, sodium hypochlorite, chlorine and water. What do you get when you mix all those chemicals together?”

  He shrugged. The guy was a cop, not a chemist.

  “Bleach,” I said. “Bleach, pretty strong, specially for cotton fiber.”

  “So?” he said again.

  “What did Bartholomew’s guy tell you about currency paper?” I asked him.

  Finlay inhaled sharply. It was practically a gasp.

  “Christ,” he said. “Currency paper is mostly cotton fiber. With a bit of linen. They’re bleaching the dollar bills. My God, Reacher, they’re bleaching the ink off. I don’t believe it. They’re bleaching the ink off the singles and giving themselves forty million sheets of genuine blank paper to play with.”

  I grinned at him and he held out his right hand. We smacked a high five and whooped at each other, alone in the speeding car.

  “You got it, Harvard guy,” I said. “That’s how they’re doing it. No doubt about that. They’ve figured out the chemistry and they’re reprinting the blank bills as hundreds. That’s what Joe meant. E Unum Pluribus. Out of one comes many. Out of one dollar comes a hundred dollars.”

  “Christ,” Finlay said again. “They’re bleaching the ink off. This is something else, Reacher. And you know what this all means? Right now, that warehouse is stuffed full to the ceiling with forty tons of genuine dollar bills. There’s forty million dollars in there. Forty tons, all piled up, waiting for the Coast Guard to pull back. We’ve caught them with their pants down, right?”

  I laughed, happily.

  “Right,” I said. “Their pants are down around their ankles. Their asses are hanging out in the breeze. That’s what they were so worried about. That’s why they’re panicking.”

  Finlay shook his head. Grinned at the windshield.

  “How the hell did you figure this out?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer right away. We drove on. The highway was hoisting us through the gathering sprawl of Atlanta’s southern edge. Blocks were filling up. Construction and commerce were busy confirming the Sunbelt’s growing strength. Cranes stood ready to shore up the city’s southern wall against the rural emptiness outside.

  “We’re going to take this one step at a time,” I said.

  “First of all, I’m going to prove it to you. I’m going to show you an air conditioner box stuffed with genuine one-dollar bills.”

  “You are?” he said. “Where?”

  I glanced across at him.

  “In the Stollers’ garage,” I said.

  “Christ’s sake, Reacher,” he said. “It got burned down. And there was nothing in it, right? Even if there was, now it’s got the Atlanta PD and fire chiefs swarming all over it.”

  “I’ve got no information says it got burned down,” I said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he said. “I told you, it was on the telex.”

  “Where did you go to school?” I asked him.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” he said.

  “Precision,” I said. “It’s a habit of mind. It can get reinforced by good schooling. You saw Joe’s computer printout, right?”

  Finlay nodded.

  “You recall the second-to-last item?” I asked him.

  “Stollers’ Garage,” he said.

  “Right,” I said. “But think about the punctuation. If the apostrophe was before the final letter, it would mean the garage belonging to one person called Stoller. The singular possessive, they call it in school, right?”

  “But?” he said.

  “It wasn’t written like that,” I said. “The apostrophe came after the final letter. It meant the garage belonging to the Stollers. The plural possessive. The garage belonging to two people called Stoller. And there weren’t two people called Stoller living at the house out by the golf course. Judy and Sherman weren’t married. The only place we’re going to find two people called Stoller is the little old house where Sherman’s parents live. And they’ve got a garage.”

  Finlay drove on in silence. Trawled back to his grade-school grammar.

  “You think he stashed a box with his folks?” he said.

  “It’s logical,” I said. “The boxes we saw in his own place were empty. But Sherman didn’t know he was going to die last Thursday. So it’s reasonable to assume he had more savings stashed away somewhere else. He thought he was going to live for years without working.”

  We were just about into Atlanta. The big interchange was coming up.

 
“Loop around past the airport,” I told him.

  We skirted the city on a raised ribbon of concrete. We passed near the airport. I found my way back to the poor part of town. It was nearly seven thirty in the morning. The place looked pretty good in the soft morning light. The low sun gave it a spurious glow. I found the right street, and the right house, crouching inoffensively behind its hurricane fencing.

  We got out of the car and I led Finlay through the gate in the wire fence. Along the straight path to the door. I nodded to him. He pulled his badge and pounded on the door. We heard the hallway floor creak. We heard bolts and chains snapping and clinking. Then the door opened. Sherman Stoller’s mother stood there. She looked awake. Didn’t look like we’d got her out of bed. She didn’t speak. Just stared out at us.

  “Morning, Mrs. Stoller,” I said. “Remember me?”

  “You’re a police officer,” she said.

  Finlay held his badge out toward her. She nodded.

  “Better come in,” she said.

  We followed her down the hall into the cramped kitchen.

  “What can I do for you?” the old lady asked.

  “We’d like to see the inside of your garage, ma’am,” Finlay said. “We have reason to believe your son may have placed some stolen property there.”

  The woman stood silently in her kitchen for a moment. Then she turned and took a key off a nail on the wall. Handed it to us without a word. Walked off down the narrow hallway and disappeared into another room. Finlay shrugged at me and we went back out the front door and walked around to the garage.

  It was a small tumbledown structure, barely big enough for a single car. Finlay used the key on the lock and swung the door open. The garage was empty except for two tall cartons. They were stacked side by side against the end wall. Identical to the empty boxes I’d seen at Sherman Stoller’s new house. Island Air-conditioning, Inc. But these were still sealed with tape. They had long handwritten serial numbers. I took a good look at them. According to those numbers, there was a hundred thousand dollars in each box.