A Hard Man To Forget

by Dan Ames

The chopper then took off and flew behind a line of mountains to the north. There was grit in Pauling’s mouth and she spat it out. As the sound of the helicopter faded, it was met with silence.

  Pauling wondered how everyone could be so sure of the truck’s location if all of the GPS technology had been removed previously.

  “Tell them what they need to do here,” Hess said to Ostertag, gesturing toward Pauling and Tallon. “I’m going to call into the HazMat and SWAT teams and check on their status. They should be here within fifteen minutes.”

  Hess turned toward the Crown Vic and its driver, putting a cell phone to her ear.

  Ostertag turned to Pauling and Tallon.

  “You are to be witnesses only,” he said. “You are not to engage in any–”

  Suddenly, the front of his face exploded outward in a shower of blood and brain matter. He folded to the ground and Pauling was reaching for her gun when she froze.

  Hess stepped out from behind Ostertag’s fallen body with her gun raised, a small curlicue of smoke rising from the muzzle, now pointed directly at Tallon and Pauling.

  “He was right,” she said. “You are only to be witnesses.”

  The driver of the vehicle got out of the plain sedan. Pauling felt like she’d seen him before. Maybe one of the thugs who had tried to grab Cassady at her house. The one who’d taken a shot at her.

  Pauling watched as he went to the back of the car and popped the trunk.

  He hoisted Cassady out of the rear of the vehicle, none too gently. Her hands were tied behind her back, a piece of duct tape was across her mouth, and her feet were duct taped together, too.

  At least she’s alive, Pauling thought.

  “Getting rid of evidence, I see,” Pauling said to Hess.

  “Sure. Loose ends aren’t a good thing in this kind of situation,” Hess said. “It should have been taken care of much earlier but we weren’t exactly working with the A-team.”

  An off-road vehicle emerged from behind one of the towering sandstone cliffs. It drove toward them and Pauling knew who was in it before the vehicle stopped.

  A tall bald man emerged from the front passenger seat.

  He walked with an exaggerated posture, and wore gold-rimmed aviator glasses with yellow tinted lenses.

  Vance Walker, Pauling thought

  He looked like a delusional cyborg. His body was lean and taut, and he moved with the easy grace of an athlete. It reminded Pauling of someone.

  And then it hit her.

  “Do we have a little father/daughter reunion going on here?” Pauling asked. “How touching.”

  “You’re fairly perceptive,” Hess said. “I’m kind of surprised you were such a failure at the FBI. That place is full of simpletons. You should have fit right in.”

  “Spoken like Daddy’s little girl,” Pauling said.

  “The SWAT team was a nice touch,” Tallon said. “You’ve thought of everything, except this plan will never work. Your old man’s a crackpot and you’re brainwashed.”

  “We have thought of everything,” Walker said. “And I consider the label crackpot to be a good one. We’ve got a truck full of goodies for the city of Los Angeles. They deserve it.”

  “How many millions are going to die because of your experiment?” Pauling asked. “Do you really think it’s going to incite a war?”

  Walker rolled his eyes.

  “How many people will die?” Walker asked. “The answer to that question is whatever the number, it won’t be nearly enough. Which is why this is only the opening salvo in the war to remake the world.”

  “And while you accomplished nothing at the FBI,” Hess said to Pauling. “At least you’re going to finally get the credit you deserve.”

  Pauling had a sudden, stunning revelation.

  “You sent me the letter with Reacher’s name on it, didn’t you?” Pauling asked.

  Hess smirked at her.

  “You saw my file,” Pauling continued. “You knew I had worked with Reacher previously. Why? Why did you lure me out here?”

  “I needed someone to blame for all of these murders. And to generally fuck everything else up,” Hess said. “You seemed perfectly qualified. A former FBI agent, a bit of a rogue. A private investigator. I knew if I brought you out here, I’d have another chess piece to play with. It worked perfectly.”

  “No one is going to believe you,” Pauling said.

  “Aw, were you hoping to roll around the hay some more with Reacher?” Hess asked.

  Pauling felt her face burn.

  Hess leaned forward and whispered to Pauling. “Yeah, that was in the file, too.”

  Walker stepped around Hess. The other man, the one who’d shot at Pauling in Cassady’s house, had now walked up to them. He pushed Cassady toward them and leveled his gun at them.

  “Ah, here we are,” Walker said.

  Pauling had heard a rumble in the distance and now the convoy arrived. A Crown Vic in front, followed by a semi-truck pulling an extra wide trailer behind it. On the trailer was a large metal shipping container.

  Two men got out of the Crown Vic and walked toward them. One of them was very tall and Pauling remembered that Tallon had described one of his beating victims at the gas station as being of impressive height.

  The tall man smirked at Tallon.

  “Showtime,” Walker said.

  55

  Rollins and Petrie had dismissed the other members of the team. Now, they were on a live video link with an Air Force base whose location had not been fully disclosed.

  The footage was grainy, but then again, it was being beamed from a UAV tens of thousands of feet above where Pauling and Tallon now stood.

  “She’s gone rogue,” Petrie said. “Final confirmation.”

  The shit had hit the fan once Hess had been in Albuquerque. After her initial check-in, she had stopped providing any updates to the team. They’d been able to track her movements, but all communication had ceased. There hadn’t been time to send in a second team.

  All they had managed to do was confirm with Ostertag that Hess was leading the operation, but had stopped short of asking him to intervene and update them on her behalf. It would have raised too many red flags.

  Now, they realized their mistake.

  “How? Why?” Petrie asked.

  “Oh, we’ll get to the bottom of that,” Rollins said. “But we’ve got to move on this now. And move fast.”

  He spoke into the headset.

  “Agent down,” he said. “Recommend we strike now. That truck cannot be allowed to go anywhere.”

  Rollins listened to his military counterpart on the other end of the line.

  “Confirmed. Contents of vehicle must not be agitated,” he said.

  Petrie watched the figures on the screen. It looked like there was movement and he stifled the urge to shout an alarm.

  “Roger that,” Rollins said into his headset.

  He turned to Petrie.

  “Warn Pauling,” he said. “She’s got an incoming in about ten seconds.”

  56

  Pauling felt the phone buzz in her pocket. They’d taken the guns but not her phone. And now, the three of them were separated from the main group. Walker and Hess had approached the big truck, while the man with the gun kept his distance from them.

  Her phone buzzed again and she waited until the man with the gun wasn’t looking at her.

  She was able to glance at the screen.

  There were only two words and the message had come from an area code she recognized as Washington, D.C.

  The message was clear.

  Drone. Incoming.

  She glanced up at Tallon, who was watching her. Pauling looked at the bluff where Walker had been hidden during Hess’s ambush.

  Pauling glanced back at Tallon and nodded.

  She turned and began running for the bluff. Behind her, she knew Tallon would grab Cassady and follow.

  Her feet dug into the sand and at any minute she expected a bullet in th
e back, between her shoulder blades.

  She heard someone shout and Pauling glanced back over her shoulder.

  Tallon was carrying Cassady like a sack of groceries, and running at an angle, cutting every five steps to throw off the aim of the man with the gun. Pauling pivoted and changed direction just as the shooter fired another round.

  Sand kicked up in front of her.

  Pauling hoped they wouldn’t be too eager to pursue them. After all, the only thing in front of them was a vast stretch of sand. Dozens of square miles of nothing but parched desert.

  There was another shot and more sand kicked up in front of Pauling.

  “Quit shooting, just run them down, you moron,” Pauling heard Walker yell.

  An engine roared to life behind them, but the bluff was less than a hundred yards away. Tallon passed her, which pissed off Pauling. Even worse, she could have sworn she saw him smile as he raced past her. An impressive feat considering he was carrying a human being under his arm.

  Behind them, Pauling heard the sound of an engine grow louder. Since the desert was flat, with no obstacles to maneuver around, the driver could easily catch them. But not before they made it to the bluff.

  But just then, Pauling heard the sound of a second engine. This one had a tone that was much softer, much slower, and quite distant.

  Instantly, she knew what it was.

  She’d spent some time overseas, and had seen, and heard, her fair share of drones.

  The sound was unmistakable.

  It was reminiscent of a distant lawn mower.

  The sound grew and then she saw Tallon disappear behind the bluff and she followed. There was a large rock outcropping and Tallon must have recognized the sound, too, because he threw Cassady behind the rock and waited for Pauling, who dove in on top of Cassady and then Tallon landed on top of her.

  Just in time.

  An explosion shook the ground and instantly falling dirt and rock rained down upon them.

  Pauling could hear Cassady screaming underneath her.

  The sound of the drone was gone.

  And so was the sound of the car behind them.

  Silence.

  57

  They got to their feet and Pauling freed Cassady from her restraints.

  “Wait here,” Pauling said. Cassady was a wreck, with tears smearing the reddish sand on her face. She slumped over and leaned against the base of a boulder. Pauling figured she couldn’t even stand if she tried.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Pauling told her. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  She joined Tallon at the base of the bluff, and they both readied themselves to see what damage had been done.

  “I’m impressed, Pauling,” Tallon said to her. “Calling in a drone strike? You’ve got some pull, don’t you?”

  “I wish,” she said. “I would have called it in a lot sooner.”

  They came out from behind the bluff and saw that the car pursuing them, and its driver, were gone.

  In its place was a wrecked, burning shell of metal. The smell of burned flesh filled the air, along with acrid smoke and burning fuel.

  Just beyond the wrecked car was a grisly collection of body parts, scattered like they’d been spilled from above.

  Pauling spotted what was left of Hess. She’d been ripped in two. Carefully, Pauling approached, knelt down and used her fingers to extract Hess’s gun from its holster.

  Someone behind her yelled and Pauling turned just as Walker leapt from the ground, his face a bloody mask, and raised a gun, pointed at Tallon.

  But Tallon was already moving. He simply stepped inside Walker’s outstretched arm and punched him in the throat. He followed that with a terrific blow, an elbow to Walker’s jaw that made a horrible popping sound and then Walker sank to the ground.

  Tallon caught his arm and pulled the gun from his hand. Tallon checked the pistol and held it in front of him, looking off toward the shipping container still on the truck.

  It was intact.

  Pauling thought for a moment that Tallon was going to shoot Walker, but instead, he stepped back and turned to Pauling. “That was precise–”

  Suddenly, a gunshot rang out and Tallon threw himself to the left, rolled and sprang to his feet, the gun held in front of him, his finger on the trigger.

  Pauling looked and saw Cassady standing six feet away from Walker, whose bald head was now sporting a big hole from which blood was gushing. He sank to his knees, and then fell face-first in the sand.

  Cassady had a gun in her hand, which she now looked at as if it was a foreign object someone had placed there.

  Pauling figured she must have found it in the wrecked car. She’d probably gotten it from the driver, the man who’d held them briefly at gunpoint.

  Pauling walked toward Cassady, who stared at the dead body of Walker.

  Finally, Cassady spoke.

  “That was for Rick,” she said.

  58

  Tallon stood next to his vehicle. It was late, and he had given serious consideration to spending the night in Albuquerque and heading back home in the morning.

  But he decided against it.

  It had been a strange ride, and he was looking forward to getting back to “his” desert. The thought of running free and being lost in his own thoughts was highly motivating. He was anxious to get on the road.

  He and Pauling had waited with Cassady for the Feds to arrive, as Pauling knew they would. It took about an hour of them waiting before it happened. Eventually, after some long hours being questioned, they were released.

  Cassady had been taken to a local hospital and was under care for some minor bumps and bruises. A distant aunt had agreed to come and help her get back on her feet.

  And now, Tallon was just waiting for Pauling.

  They had come back to her hotel and she had run in to get something for him. Now, she came back out and walked over to where he had parked.

  “Pauling,” Tallon said, “You sure know how to show a guy a good time.”

  “I appreciate that,” she said. Tallon again marveled at her voice. That low, jazz-singer-the-next-morning rasp that was incredibly sexy. This was now another job where he’d worked with her and hadn’t been able to make any progress romantically.

  Well, maybe next time.

  “But honestly, what did you think?” she asked. “That I would call you in for a divorce case? A cheating spouse?”

  “No, I figured it would be good. Just didn’t think it would be on this scale,” he answered.

  “Here,” she said. She handed Tallon a check. He didn’t even look at it.

  “Until next time?” he asked.

  “Sounds like a plan,” she said. He leaned in, then, and kissed her. It was a hell of a kiss, the kind that made him wonder why he hadn’t tried it sooner.

  She must have read his mind because after, she said, “Well, I’ve got a flight to catch in two hours. Drive safely, Tallon.”

  He smiled at her. Those green eyes were something else. Next time, he’d be a little more bold.

  “Later, Pauling,” he said. “You know where to find me.”

  He drove away and saw her turn and walk back into her hotel.

  That’s a hell of a woman, he thought.

  Epilogue

  Two Days Later

  * * *

  New York welcomed her back with a mailbox stuffed with letters, an email folder full of messages, and an office in need of some fresh air.

  Pauling was back on her regular schedule. She’d already worked out, gotten her coffee, and unlocked the office. She cracked a window and then attacked her mail with gusto.

  She’d also put in a call to Cassady and spoken with the aunt as well as the doctor to make sure the young woman and her unborn baby were both doing fine. She would recover, and hopefully start putting her life back together.

  Tallon had sent her a photo from the backyard of his house. It had been last evening, and there was a small fire in the fire pit, with a m
ountain range in the background framed by a beautiful orange glow from the setting sun.

  It had been an invitation of sorts, and Pauling was giving it some serious consideration.

  Once she was caught up with her various bills, purchase orders and invoices, she worked until her little red icon for unread email messages finally blinked off.

  She was officially caught up.

  With her desk clear, she brought out the folder with Reacher’s name on it.

  For a long time, she simply stared at it.

  It was this cheap little folder that had started it all.

  She’d definitely wanted to see Reacher again, but she wondered how much of that was leftover physical attraction. And curiosity.

  Pauling considered that. It wasn’t like she was a young twenty-something, looking for love. At this point, she had made some choices and was comfortable with the results.

  But who really knew what was going to happen? What the future might bring?

  It was like she had told Tallon, life was just full of surprises.

  Maybe one of them would turn out to be Jack Reacher.

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  About the Author

  Dan Ames is an international bestselling author and winner of the Independent Book Award for Crime Fiction.