by Dan Ames
For Pauling, lunch was delightful. A refreshing break. A wonderful salad of field greens, candied walnuts and smoked salmon. With a glass of sparkling water. And excellent, thought-provoking conversation.
In the back of her mind, however, Pauling was thinking about the phone number and the mysterious envelope with Reacher’s name on it.
Pauling loved mysteries. And puzzles. It was why she had gone into law enforcement in the first place.
She’d always enjoyed challenges, and so she’d made a career out of them. The more complex the task, the better.
After lunch Pauling walked back to her office. It was a sunny day in New York, the shadows of the buildings diminished the warmth, but Pauling stayed in the sun when she could. Most of the office dwellers were back at their desks and the sidewalks were relatively light with foot traffic. It was one of the pleasures of being self-employed. The opportunity to set one’s own schedule and guarantee a moment, here and there, to relax.
In her office, Pauling got behind her desk and opened one of her databases. She used a reverse lookup service and searched for information on the mystery number.
The results were immediate.
It was a cell phone.
Registered to someone in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
That was interesting.
Pauling had never been to Albuquerque. She’d been to Las Cruces, New Mexico to chase a drug dealer who’d slipped into the country near El Paso. Eventually, she’d caught him near the Mescalero Indian Reservation hiding in a dilapidated RV being driven by a pair of eighty-year-old hippies.
But she’d never been to Albuquerque. Her mind instantly went to Reacher. His travels took him everywhere, she knew. Had he been in Albuquerque? Had he sent the message from there to her office in New York?
For a moment, she wondered if Reacher needed help.
And then she laughed at herself over the silliness of that thought.
Reacher never needed anyone’s help, as far as she knew.
Still, the question of the envelope was a puzzle, and she was enjoying the diversion.
Finally, she decided the time for contemplation was over.
Pauling picked up her phone, punched in the numbers and waited for a voice at the other end of the line.
9
The prisoner’s IQ was in the low-rent neighborhood of 75 or so. Five points below the lowest end of the average spectrum of human intelligence.
IQ and personality are not intertwined, however.
His antisocial and sociopathic tendencies had originated all on their own. They weren’t caused by his low mental capacity; rather, they were exposed by it.
In other words, his innate nature fated him to a life of crime. His diminished intelligence guaranteed he would be caught. And quickly.
By the time the day’s test subject was fifteen, he had been incarcerated multiple times. Upon his latest release, he had been sentenced to a halfway house. Adding to his repertoire of less than savory characteristics, he soon included addiction.
Heroin, to be exact.
An offer of free drugs led to his abduction, and he now found himself strapped to a straight-backed wooden chair whose legs were bolted to the concrete floor.
The room was all concrete, with a single overhead light, and a pipe that ran the length of the wall, up to the ceiling, to an austere shower head, poised directly over the test subject’s head.
The prisoner had a strange intuition that he was underground. Maybe it was the quality of the acoustics. Or the lack of windows. Or the slightly damp, musty smell. Like a basement.
Behind a thick window made of one-way glass, a small group watched the prisoner. They observed him with great interest. They each held a clipboard with a sheet filled with lines and boxes meant to be utilized once the experiment began.
Standing at the rear of the group was a bald man of impressive stature. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders and a face comprised of razor-sharp angles. The man’s head was shaved, revealing several blood vessels protruding with great visibility. His eyes were clear and blue, and a little wider than normal as if he was either mildly surprised, or watching the world around him with great intensity.
Those who knew him well, knew it was the latter.
They also knew his blood vessels were dilated for a reason. He was both a medical doctor as well as a doctor of philosophy. His medical degree allowed him a large amount of latitude in prescribing himself unusual and unique pharmaceutical products designed to increase his musculature, as well as his intellect.
The physical side effects were all too apparent.
The psychological ramifications were not.
The group in front of the man had no intention of making their observations known, however. They were solely focused on the prisoner on the other side of the wall. Each and every one of them knew as well that the man behind them was observing them, as much as the unfortunate victim strapped to the chair. They much preferred to be observed in their current setting than in the space on the other side of the protected wall.
Somewhere behind them a mechanical thunk reverberated throughout the room. As a group, they all straightened in their chairs and moved their pens into position over their papers. The man at the rear of the room remained immobile.
A gurgling sound echoed throughout the space, followed by a hiss and then from the shower head a stream of muddy brown liquid sprang, showering down on the prisoner below.
The man struggled against his straps, but to no avail. They were industrial-grade and impossible for a human being of even superhuman strength to break. The chair itself was extremely sturdy and could withstand any amount of panicked torque.
The man in the chair bucked and heaved, screamed and cursed. Initially, they were protestations of fear, however, as the liquid continued to rain down upon the man, his skin turned red and blisters began to appear. The fear turned to anger, followed by hostile shouting and cursing. Gradually, his voice lost volume and his throat and vocal cords burned.
His head slumped forward.
The liquid continued to pour down onto his now inert form.
Soon, the effects on his body would be severe and irreversible.
Behind the wall, the people with the clipboards began to write.
The man at the back of the room leaned forward.
He was smiling.
10
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end of the line belonged to a woman. Voices were always difficult to assess age, but Pauling guessed the woman was younger. Somewhere between mid-twenties and mid-thirties.
“Hello, this is Lauren Pauling, I’m a private investigator. With whom am I speaking?”
“Who? Who are you?”
The woman sounded exasperated and harried. In the background, Pauling could hear the sound of other voices and possibly someone typing on a keyboard.
Pauling answered by speaking a little more slowly, and a tad louder. “Lauren Pauling, I’m a private investigator. Someone delivered a letter to me with this phone number.”
“Hold on,” the woman said.
Pauling listened and heard the swish of fabric, which probably meant the woman had placed the phone against herself. Most likely, the woman was at work, in an office, and needed to go somewhere private to take the call.
Moments later, Pauling heard the sound of a door closing and the woman came back on the line.
“Okay,” the woman said.
Pauling waited but the woman apparently had no intention of precipitating conversation.
“First off, did you send me this letter?” Pauling asked.
“No, I didn’t send any letter to anyone.” Her voice was guarded. As if she was being questioned by an authority figure.
“Okay,” Pauling said. “Are you in need of a private investigator for any reason?”
Silence on the other end of the line. There was the vague sound of traffic and Pauling figured the woman had left her office bui
lding and was now taking the call outside, which seemed a little extreme.
Why the need for such intense privacy?
“Hello?” Pauling asked.
“I’m here,” the woman said.
“Do you know a Jack Reacher?” Pauling asked.
“Who?”
“Jack Reacher.”
“No.”
A prank, Pauling thought. It had to be a prank. Someone must have read about her exploits with Reacher on the Anne Lane case. Why they would have gone to the trouble of doing something as annoying and petty as this was beyond the realm of her imagination. But stranger things had happened.
Still, the behavior of the woman on the other end of the line was odd. Usually, a prank had some sort of punchline.
So far, there was nothing.
Well, she had work to do. If no one needed her help, she was happy to move on to the next task for the day.
“I’m sorry,” Pauling said. “There must have been some mistake. I sincerely apologize for the intrusion–”
There was a muffled sound and Pauling stopped talking.
She listened intently.
The sound came again.
Had the woman gasped?
“Hello?” Pauling asked.
Another sound.
And then Pauling realized what she was hearing.
The woman was crying.
11
The man in charge of the group of people seated around the big black conference table went by the name of Rollins. He had a first name. And a fairly impressive title. But he preferred to be called Rollins. Nothing more. Nothing less.
He waited patiently while the individuals around the table weighed their response to his request for someone to tell him what the hell was going on.
However, Rollins knew they weren’t just organizing their thoughts before speaking, they were also assessing their competitive rank in the room.
The lower a person’s rank in the hierarchy, the less need there was to speak. Those with laptops vacillated between peering intently at their screen, while also trying to acknowledge the boss had just issued a statement someone in the room needed to address.
The longer the silence went on, the more charged the air in the room became.
Eventually, barely perceptible shifts in body language had everyone leaning slightly toward the man centrally seated along the edge of the table.
His name was Petrie.
Unlike the square shouldered, silvery buzz cut presence of Rollins, Petrie was a small man. He had a head that was very narrow, as if someone had squeezed it together like a loaf of bread being pinched between firmer items in the grocery cart. His nose was long, with a high Roman arch. His eyes were set back in his head.
The effect was that of a small predatory bird.
“Since the initial notification, we have been gathering data. That process continues. It’s still too early to draw any conclusions,” Petrie finally said.
“Please state your early conclusions,” Rollins said. It was a rebuke. Stalling was not acceptable. Theories needed to be formulated. Hypotheses tested. Insights discovered.
The room lapsed into silence.
Rollins swiveled his head slowly, letting his gaze fall on every individual for at least a few seconds.
Finally, it settled on a woman seated last at the table. She had short, auburn hair cut into a hip wedge shape. Her face was guileless, but it was the kind of openness that held an advantage. Many had trusted the countenance, only to discover that it had been a tripwire.
She lifted her head, taking her gaze from the laptop in front of her and fastening her eyes directly onto Rollins.
“Someone is so far ahead of us we can’t even see their taillights,” she said.
12
The sun was merciless, but mercy was the last thing Tallon wanted.
His goal was punitive in nature. What didn’t kill you made you stronger.
He began the run with a sprint, to break the sweat and to jump start his heart rate. There was a trail that meandered from a canyon entrance several miles from his house. He had driven there, parked, and embarked on his training run.
What was he training for?
He often asked himself that question. He was training for any eventuality, he told himself. The unexpected. The upcoming. The unforeseen enemy around the corner.
It was his way of life.
He’d been taught that reflexes came down to training. When presented with split-second decisions, under duress, most individuals reverted to their most basic instincts. In other words, in order for the desired behavior to occur, it had to be second nature. And it could only become that deeply ingrained through repeated training. Over and over and over. Until a person did it without thinking.
Because in the heat of battle, there usually wasn’t time for intellectualizing.
A person reacted quickly, or they died.
It was that simple.
Tallon wore a weighted vest to simulate a pack or a weapon. He wore a lightweight T-shirt, camouflage cargo pants, hiking boots, a baseball cap and sunglasses. On his wrist was a multifunction watch. On the inside of his pants was a concealed holster with a 9mm pistol. Opposite the pistol was a folding knife, honed to a razor edge.
Once his breath was coming in gasps, Tallon slowed the pace to a steady jog, one that would eat up the miles and that he could maintain for hours. It was his default pace.
The canyons were rimmed with red, the sand a dirty brown that showed darker where the wind or an animal had disturbed the ground. An occasional field mouse darted out of Tallon’s way and overhead a hawk was watching his progress.
Routine was never a good thing. Tallon knew that patterns were bad. As a hunter, he had used them extensively himself. On days like this, Tallon never took the same route twice, but he had a general idea in mind for the length of the run. He usually aimed for around ten miles and by alternating his choices to avoid uneven terrain, he was able to not only vary his path but extend or shorten the distance based on his current preference.
Today was a longer day.
All of the time on the road, trapped in a vehicle had left him restless and irritable. The open desert calmed him. The extremes of nearby Death Valley helped him maintain his perspective and focus.
As he ran, the calm that so often quickly arrived on these excursions failed to materialize. He was off. Something felt foreign to him.
His eyes and mind sought out differences in the surrounding terrain. Maybe there was someone else out in the desert. Hikers. Campers. Meth manufacturers. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d come across others seeking refuge in the desert, for various reasons.
But he saw no one.
Tallon continued on.
The hawk had left his holding pattern and was gone. A snake crossed Tallon’s path a hundred yards ahead.
His stride ate up the miles and less than ninety minutes later, he was nearing the completion of his route.
Tallon was satisfied with his performance.
But the outing had left him troubled.
As if he had missed something.
Something out there in the desert.
13
“Who are you?” the woman asked. “I know you said your name. But, like, who are you? Really?” She sniffled. Her voice trembled and Pauling knew the effort to utter even those words had been significant.
Pauling gave the woman a moment and then said, “My name is Lauren Pauling. I’m a private investigator based in New York City. Your phone number was delivered to my office via a letter.”
“I don’t understand,” the woman said.
“Why don’t we start with your name?” Pauling said. She had a fresh pad of paper in front of her, her pen ready to start writing.
“I don’t know,” the woman said.
“You don’t know your name?”
“No, I mean I don’t know if I should talk to you. I don’t know what to do.” The woman’s voice had risen in tone, and Pauling knew
she was about to burst into tears. Probably trying to keep it in check since she would have to go back to her desk. A face ruined by tears would be noticed by coworkers.
The young woman was desperately trying to keep it together.
“Why are you afraid to tell me your name?” Pauling asked.
“Yes. I mean. I’m afraid to talk to you. I don’t know who you are or why you’re calling me. I don’t know if it’s some kind of trick. Or a test. I just don’t know.”
The woman’s voice had grown softer, to almost a whisper. She was panicked. Scared.
Pauling tried to be as soothing as possible. “Look, why don’t we start over. First, tell me if you’re in any immediate danger.”
A long pause and then, “I don’t know.”
Pauling idly tapped the end of the pen against the sheet of paper. It was the only sound in the office. Tap. Tap. Tap.
A thought occurred to her.
“Are you worried someone is listening to this phone call?”
The woman gasped. Pauling took that as confirmation.
“Do you have children?” Pauling asked.
“No.”
“Are you married?”
“Yes,” the woman said, but the answer triggered another round of sobbing.
Pauling patiently waited for the woman to catch her breath.
“Did something happen to your husband?”
“I don’t…know,” the woman choked out. “I can’t do this. Can’t talk. On the phone. I have to go. They’re going to wonder where I am.”
The thought occurred to Pauling that she could simply leave the woman her phone number and tell her to call her if she felt like she needed help. Ordinarily, she would have given serious consideration to going in that direction.
Leaving the matter in someone else’s hands.
Except for one thing.
Reacher.
