by Dan Ames
He turned, expecting to see the girl with either a gun or knife, coming at him.
But he was wrong.
The girl was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The parking lot was little more than a clearing in the grass that ran about four car widths across.
At some point, someone had thrown in a few bags worth of loose gravel to prevent the grass and weeds from reclaiming their territory. It hadn’t worked. There was a lot of green overtaking the gravel. Before long, nature would win.
The lot was empty, and Pauling pulled her rental car into the middle of the space. She got out, locked up, and wished she’d brought some bug spray.
The air was damp and the sun wouldn’t be able to cut through the dense pine trees. A perfect environment for mosquitoes and biting flies.
Pauling spotted two trailheads, one to the north, the other slightly back toward the direction she’d just come. That would be the one the shooter had used.
She paused, thinking it through.
Had the shooter parked here, as well? Seen the lone man on the road? He then would have driven past him, hurried into position and taken the shot. A simple sequence, most likely accurate. But not the only plausible scenario. Pauling needed more information.
She considered the setting.
It was definitely a remote location. Traffic virtually nonexistent. No one to see the murder. Hearing it would be a different matter. Sound carried well in the mountains due to the thinner air.
Pauling wondered if Chief Jardine had been thorough in canvasing the area to check if anyone had seen a car parked in this spot around the time of the murder. There were no residential areas nearby. Tough to knock on doors when there weren’t any houses. But had someone heard the shot? Pauling made a note to check on whether or not there were any active hunting seasons. If not, a gunshot would certainly catch someone’s attention.
She wondered how long the man had been walking on the road. Had he come from Pine Beach? If so, that was at least two hours walking on the road. Surely someone would have passed him.
And a man with a physique similar to Reacher’s would not go unnoticed.
Pauling made a mental note to see if Jardine had posted any descriptions of the man in the morgue. 6’ 5” with massive shoulders and arms corded with muscle. Walking. Alone.
Someone must have seen him.
Pauling realized she was avoiding going into the woods so she walked ahead, took the trail and was soon climbing vertically on a path covered mostly with pine needles and loose stones.
Along the way, she kept her eye out for anything that didn’t fit, but she had little hope. It rained here every day, practically. If the shooter had left behind any evidence, the chances were slim it had still survived intact.
The nature of the kill was interesting, too. Downhill shots were always a little tricky and the more she climbed, the more convinced she was there was more investigating to do. Her initial assessment of Chief Jardine was one of competence, but perhaps lacking in experience. Pauling could help with that.
She climbed and the trail twisted left, toward the road. Pauling soon discovered the site.
There was an enlarged area cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. The pine needles were scattered and what grass had managed to grow in the space was heavily trampled.
No doubt the shooter had retrieved the shell casing, or casings. She assumed it had been one round fired. A head shot that had clearly gotten the job done. But she made a mental note to follow up with Jardine.
Pauling studied the ground.
Had the shooter been standing? Or had he gotten down on the ground, in a true sniper position to take the shot?
No way to know now, Pauling thought, as she studied the highly contaminated crime scene. There was clear evidence that someone, most likely Jardine and her officers, had trampled all over the site. The grass was matted down and the dirt underneath was slick and muddy.
Where the trail widened it created a ledge that wasn’t big enough to be called an overlook, but would have provided enough room for a single shooter to get comfortable. It was less than a quarter mile from the parking area, so the killer would have needed to be fairly confident no one would be coming along the trail.
Concealment would also have been possible, to a certain extent.
The shooter hears someone coming along the trail, slides off the edge of the embankment and he’s not visible from the trail.
That is, if he heard someone coming.
Pauling glanced down, over the ledge.
Maybe some disturbance visible, maybe not. Impossible to tell and even if someone had been there, how would she know if it’d been the cops or the shooter? She didn’t have a personal crime lab to analyze fibers.
She looked down the line of sight to the road.
By her estimation, Pauling put the distance at roughly eight hundred yards. Not an exceedingly difficult distance for a good rifleman, but not a cakewalk, either.
Downhill.
Wind shear from the bluff could be unpredictable.
The distance said less about the shooter’s ability, and more about his confidence.
When he set up here, he had no problem with the length of the shot or the gusting winds that swirled enough to affect the trajectory of a bullet.
A breeze picked up speed behind her and pine boughs above her swayed in a delayed reaction. Pauling realized that not a single car had passed since she’d been occupying the vantage point.
With nothing else to analyze, Pauling turned and headed back toward her car. She watched as she walked, looking for anything discarded or missed by the Pine Beach PD, but she found nothing. Either they’d collected everything, or there’d been nothing left by the perp, which was Pauling’s guess.
Back at the clearing, she walked toward her rental car as she heard the sound of a vehicle approaching.
Surprised, she glanced up as a black SUV slowed.
The windows were tinted.
Pauling had her door open, and watched the SUV.
It had slowed even more.
And now, it stopped.
Chapter Thirty
She was satisfied, in every sense.
Over the course of a week she had made a clean kill on a tricky downhill shot, assassinated a senator, and fulfilled her every sexual desire to the fullest extent possible.
It had been a successful sequence of events for the shooter known to her employers and fellow mercenaries as Grace.
The name was an inside joke.
Not her real name, of course.
She’d chosen it for the multiple meanings. Grace under pressure. To grace someone with her presence. But mostly, hoping her victims prayed for grace before drawing their last breath.
Now, she watched as the gates to Sica’s compound opened, and she drove forward, to the main house.
When she parked and got out, she felt the eyes of Sica’s bodyguards on her. Grace could read their minds.
This was the assassin?
A petite, red-haired woman who barely weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet?
But then they saw her face, the lack of fear, the utter lack of emotion and she could see their appraisals instantly shift.
Grace was shown inside to a study that smelled vaguely of marijuana and whiskey. Sica stood before a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on a wide expanse of green grass, patrolled by two men with machine guns.
Sica turned to look at her and his face was partially obscured from view by the slight haze of smoke. There was no surprise registered on his face. Grace knew that Sica had done his homework. He also most likely knew it was very dangerous to meet in person. Not for her.
For him.
If things ever went sideways, anyone who saw her face would become a marked man.
A bodyguard stepped into the room and took up a space next to the door.
That was okay.
Grace wasn’t here to take out Sica. No need at this point, not with a
nother fat paycheck that was most assuredly on its way to her.
Besides, this was the wrong place and the wrong time.
If it came to that.
If that moment ever did arrive, though, it would be relatively easy despite the little man’s paranoia. Paranoia without intelligence amounts to ineffective busywork.
Grace watched the little Mexican drug boss and waited. He pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket and offered it to her.
She shook her head.
“You don’t smoke?” Sica asked.
“I’ll get enough secondhand, thank you.”
He took a long drag on his cigar and blew the smoke upward.
Grace waited.
Sica smiled at her.
“You like movies?” he asked. “Big Hollywood…what do they call them? Blockbusters?”
Grace didn’t bother to respond.
“I do,” Sica continued. “And when I see a good one, I’m happy. You know why? Because I know there’s going to be a sequel. Always. There is always a sequel. I know, I know,” he said, holding up a tiny little hand. “Usually they’re not as good. But still, I enjoy them. That’s what we have here. A sequel.”
Grace nodded. She knew that was why she was here. There was a huge payday to come, all she had to do was hope this little man got to the point. And soon.
“Part one of your job was completed to everyone’s satisfaction,” Sica said. “However, the next step that was to be completed by others, did not get done. I need you to do it.”
Sica produced a sheet of paper, folded into a small square. He handed it to Grace.
“A word of advice?” Sica said. “You seem like a very confident woman. That is good. I sent four confident men to complete Phase 2. None of them came back.”
Grace’s face remained impassive.
“That was a bad sequel,” Sica said. “Like Jaws 2. I think you will do very well with the third in the series. Like the Indiana Jones movies? Remember? First one was great. Second one not so good. Third one excellent. And the fourth was a disaster, but there won’t be a fourth in our little adventure, will there?”
Grace replied simply. “No.”
“Let me show you something,” he said. Sica walked past her and she followed, through the foyer to a side door that led down to a large subterranean room with an open square in the middle.
Sica walked up to the edge and pointed down. Grace glanced into the pit, saw the alligators at the bottom.
If he was trying to intimidate her, it didn’t work. She’d already heard about Sica’s little pet collection.
“I call them my evidence processors,” he said. “Better than a deep grave. My enemies become alligator shit.” He laughed, a high-pitched little giggle.
“One more thing,” he said. Sica led her back upstairs to a bedroom. He opened the door and Grace saw a young woman chained to a bed. The young woman’s face was a mask, her eyes blurry and unfocused. Heavily sedated.
There was something familiar about the face, and Grace instantly knew who the girl was.
“She’s the sister of one of the men who murdered my brother and his daughter in Mexico,” Sica said. “I’m using her as bait. Once you complete your part of the job, she’ll go for a swim. Do you know what I mean?”
Grace nodded. She knew exactly what he meant, because she had worked with Nathan Figueroa once, a long time ago.
This would be the part where he threatened her, Grace thought. Imply that if she didn’t fulfill her part of the deal, she too would end up in the pit.
But he displayed a little more intelligence than she had given him credit for and he implied the threat rather than directly stating it.
It didn’t matter, she thought, as she walked out of Sica’s compound.
She allowed a small smile to appear on her face.
Grace had known all along that Sica’s phase 2 plan wouldn’t work.
Because she knew Michael Tallon personally.
Oh, yes.
She knew Michael Tallon very, very well.
Chapter Thirty-One
Pauling watched as the black SUV with tinted windows came to a stop. She had the door of her rental car open, and her hand slipped inside her jacket to the butt of her gun.
The SUV idled for a moment, and then pulled away.
Pauling debated about following, but decided against it. She had arranged to meet with Tallon at Pine Beach.
She got into her rental car, fired it up, and made her way back from the direction she’d come.
Once in town, she parked and spotted Tallon outside the restaurant where she’d suggested they meet.
“Made-from-scratch biscuits,” he said, pointing at the sign in the window.
She laughed. “Men always think of food first,” Pauling said. They hugged and Tallon’s body felt warm and hard. As always, she felt the flash of physical attraction to him. He wasn’t what you would call a handsome, leading-man type, but he was attractive in a rugged kind of way.
They went inside and Pauling ordered scrambled egg whites with a biscuit and honey on the side.
Tallon chose coffee and a biscuit.
After some small talk and catching up, Tallon said, “So tell me how you ended up out here.”
Pauling filled him in on the mysterious phone call saying Reacher was dead, and then the story about a dead body believed to be Jack Reacher. Pauling knew that Tallon wondered why she had gotten a plane so quickly to come out and investigate, but he didn’t bring it up.
“So you have your doubts that it’s actually him?” he asked.
“I’m not convinced,” she said. “In fact, I’m fairly certain it isn’t him. I just haven’t shared that with the local police yet, but eventually I will. I just wanted some freedom of movement for the time being.”
“And you still don’t know who called you about it?”
“No.”
“Well, someone wanted you out here,” he said. “It stands to reason it’s the same party responsible for the murder, right?”
“Most likely,” she said.
“Who else?” Tallon asked. “It’s not like the local police would place some mysterious call asking for help. First of all, they wouldn’t ask for help, and if they absolutely had to, they wouldn’t hide it. Too much red tape these days.”
The waitress brought their biscuits and placed them on the table and topped off their coffee.
“A certain level of sophistication is on display here,” Pauling said, taking a forkful of egg white. It was bland. She added some salt and pepper.
“Yeah,” Tallon said. “You don’t manufacture a fake ATM card very easily. Unless they stole it.”
“From Jack Reacher?” Pauling asked, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”
Tallon cut a section of biscuit off with his fork. Chewed.
“Damn, these are good,” he said. “I should have ordered two.”
“The sophistication angle is an interesting one,” Pauling said.
“Sure,” Tallon agreed. “I mean, forget the ATM card. How the hell did they know about your history with Reacher? Didn’t all that happen in New York?”
“It did.”
He stabbed another chunk of biscuit with his fork. “Do you have any enemies in this part of the country? Someone who would want to lure you out here with a jacked-up story about Reacher? No pun intended.”
Pauling took a sip of coffee.
“Not that I know of. I’ve got a sister in Portland, but she’s a civilian. Nothing to do with me or my background.
“What about you?” she asked.
Tallon told her about Figueroa, his missing sister, and the gangbangers.
“So you don’t think the woman who was in my hotel room is actually his sister?”
“No,” Tallon said. They had already mutually described the woman and arrived at the conclusion that the woman in Pauling’s hotel room had been the same woman on the picnic table who’d orchestrated the ambush.
“So if she wasn’t
Figueroa’s sister, who is she?” Pauling asked.
“Great question,” Tallon said.
Pauling ran through some scenarios in her mind, none of them making much sense. Something nagged at her and suddenly it occurred to her.
“If they knew about my history with Reacher, they probably know about my history with you,” she said. “Or, put another way, they know about your history with me.”
They both watched each other as the implications reached home.
“What if the goal wasn’t to lure me out here?” Pauling asked. “What if the point was to lure you?”
Tallon’s phone buzzed and he looked at the screen.
“Shit,” he said.
“Problem?”
“Maybe part of the solution,” he said. “It’s the pathology report on my friend Nate Figueroa,” he said. Pauling watched as he scrolled through a message on his phone.
“Any surprises?” Pauling asked.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
He signaled for the check from the waitress.
“Nate Figueroa didn’t die of cancer,” Tallon said.
The waitress placed the check on the table and Tallon threw down a twenty.
“He was poisoned.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Zurich, Switzerland
* * *
Gregory stood before Gunnella Bohm and struggled to maintain eye contact. Partly because he knew she wasn’t happy. And partly because she was nearly six inches taller.
“Is this about our friend in Seattle?” Bohm asked him. Of course, she already knew the answer to the question. She just wanted him to know that nothing he could say would come as a surprise.
“Yes,” Gregory said. “It appears that one of the Department members has been doing some extensive freelance work.”
“Freelance work is their livelihood, Gregory,” she countered, just to see what he would say.
“True, however certain projects require preapproval, of which she did not obtain.”
Bohm raised an eyebrow.
“Grace has always been fiercely independent,” she said. “One of the things I admire about her.”
