by Lee Child
“Where are you going?” Finlay said.
“I’m going for a drive in the country,” I said.
I left them there in the office and walked back to the entrance. Pushed the door open and stepped outside. Scanned north up the road. The plain sedan was still there, seventy-five yards away. The two guys were still in it. Still watching. I walked over to the Bentley. Unlocked the door and got in. Nosed out of the parking lot and pulled out onto the county road. Wide and slow. Drove slowly past the two guys and carried on north. In the mirror I saw the plain sedan start up. Saw it pull out and turn in the road. It accelerated north and fell in behind me. Like I was towing it on a long invisible rope. I slowed, it slowed. I sped up, it sped up. Like a game.
18
I DROVE PAST ENO’S DINER AND ROLLED ON NORTH AWAY from town. The plain sedan followed. Forty yards back. No attempt to hide. The two guys just cruised behind me. Gazing forward. I swung west on the road to Warburton. Slowed to a cruise. The plain sedan followed. Still forty yards back. We cruised west. We were the only things moving in that vast landscape. I could see the two guys in the mirror. Gazing at me. They were spotlit by the low afternoon sun. The low, brassy light made them vivid. Young guys, Hispanic, loud shirts, black hair, very neat, very similar. Their car sat steadily in my wake.
I cruised seven or eight miles. I was looking for a place. There were bumpy earth tracks off to the left and right, every half mile or so. They led into the fields. Looped around aimlessly. I didn’t know what they were for. Maybe they led to gathering points where farmers parked machinery for the harvest. Whenever that was. I was looking for a particular track I’d seen before. It led around behind a small stand of trees on the right-hand side of the road. The only cover for miles. I’d seen it from the prison bus on Friday. Seen it again driving back in from Alabama. A sturdy stand of trees. This morning it had been floating on the mist. A little oval copse, next to the road, on the right, an earth track looping behind it, then joining up with the road again.
I saw it a couple of miles ahead. The trees were a smudge on the horizon. I drove on toward it. Snapped the glove compartment open and lifted the big automatic out. Wedged it between the squabs on the seat next to me. The two guys followed. Still forty yards back. A quarter mile from the woods I slammed the selector into second and floored the pedal. The old car gulped and shot forward. At the track I hauled the wheel around and bounced and slewed the Bentley off the road. Hurled it around to the back of the copse. Jammed it to a stop. Grabbed the gun and jumped. Left the driver’s door swinging open like I’d tumbled out and dived straight left into the trees.
But I went the other way. I went to the right. I danced around the hood and hurled myself fifteen feet into the peanut field and flattened into the ground. Crawled through the bushes and put myself on a level with where their car would have to stop on the track behind the Bentley. Pressed myself up against the brawny stalks, low down under the leaves, on the damp red earth. Then I waited. I figured they’d dropped off maybe sixty or seventy yards. They hadn’t tracked my sudden acceleration. I snicked the safety catch off. Then I heard their brown Buick. I caught the noise of the motor and the groan of the suspension. It bounced into view on the track in front of me. It stopped behind the Bentley, framed against the trees. It was about twenty feet away from me.
They were reasonably smart guys. Not at all the worst I’d ever seen. The passenger had gotten out on the road before they turned in. He thought I was in the woods. He thought he was going to come at me from behind. The driver scrambled across inside the car and rolled out of the passenger door on the far side from the trees. Right in front of me. He was holding a gun and he knelt down in the dirt, his back turned to me, hidden from where he thought I was by the Buick, looking through the car at the woods. I’d have to make him move. I didn’t want him to stay next to the car. The car had to stay driveable. I didn’t want it damaged.
They were wary of the copse. That had been the idea. Why would I drive all the way to the only woods for miles, and then hide in a field? A classic diversion. They’d fallen for it without even thinking. The guy by the car was staring through at the woods. I was staring at his back. I had the Desert Eagle lined up on him, breathing low. His partner was creeping slowly through the trees, looking for me. Pretty soon he’d get right through and come right out into view.
He arrived after about five minutes. He was holding a gun out in front of him. He dodged around the back of the Buick. Kept distance between himself and the Bentley. He crouched down next to his partner and they exchanged shrugs. Then they started peering at the Bentley. Worried that I was lying on the floor or crouching behind the stately chrome radiator. The guy who’d just come out of the woods crawled along in the dirt, keeping the Buick between himself and the trees, right in front of me, staring under the Bentley, looking for my feet.
He crawled the whole length of the Bentley. I could hear him grunting and gasping as he hauled himself along on his elbows. Then he crawled all the way back and knelt up again beside his partner. They both shuffled sideways and slowly stood up next to the Buick’s hood. They stepped over and checked inside the Bentley. They walked together to the edge of the copse and peered into the darkness. They couldn’t find me. Then they came back and stood together on the rough track, away from the cars, framed against the orange sky, staring at the trees, their backs to the field, their backs to me.
They didn’t know what to do. They were city boys. Maybe from Miami. They wore Florida clothes. They were used to neon alleys and construction sites. They were used to action under raised highways, in the trash-filled lots the tourists never saw. They didn’t know what to do about a small copse standing alone in a million acres of peanuts.
I shot them both in the back as they stood there. Two quick shots. Aimed high up between their shoulder blades. The big automatic made a sound like hand grenades going off. Birds wheeled into the air from all around. The twin crashes rolled over the countryside like thunder. The recoils pounded my hand. The two guys were hurled forward off their feet. Landed on their faces sprawled against the trees on the far side of the earth track. I raised my head and peered over. They had that slack, empty look that is left behind when life has departed.
I held onto the gun and stepped over to them. They were dead. I had seen a lot of dead people, and these two were as dead as any of them. The big Magnum shells had caught them high up on their backs. Where the big arteries and veins are, going on up into the head. The bullets had made quite a mess. I looked down at the two guys in the silence and thought about Joe.
Then I had things to do. I stepped back to the Bentley. Clicked the safety on and tossed the Desert Eagle back on the seat. Stepped over to their Buick and yanked the keys out. Popped the trunk. I guess I was hoping to find something in there. I didn’t feel bad about the two boys. But I was going to feel better still if I found something in there. Like a silenced .22 automatic. Or like four pairs of rubber overshoes and four nylon bodysuits. A few five-inch blades. Things like that. But I didn’t find things like that. I found Spivey.
He’d been dead a few hours. He’d been shot through the forehead with a .38. From close range. The revolver barrel must have been about six inches from his head. I rubbed my thumb across the skin around the bullet hole. Looked at it. There was no soot, but there were tiny gunpowder particles blasted into the skin. They wouldn’t rub off. That kind of tattooing means a fairly close range. Six inches will do it, maybe eight. Somebody had suddenly raised a gun and the slow heavy assistant warden hadn’t been quick enough to duck.
There was a scab on his chin where I’d cut him with Morrison’s blade. His small snake eyes were open. He was still in his greasy uniform. His white hairy belly showed through where I’d slashed at his shirt. He had been a big guy. To fit him in the trunk, they’d broken his legs. Probably with a shovel. They’d broken them and folded them sideways at the knee to get his body in. I gazed at him and felt angry. He’d known, and he hadn’t told me.
But they’d killed him anyway. The fact that he hadn’t told me hadn’t counted for anything. They were panicking. They were silencing everybody, while the clock ticked slowly around to Sunday. I gazed into Spivey’s dead eyes, like there was information still in there.
Then I ran back to the bodies on the edge of the copse and searched them. Two wallets and a car rental agreement. A mobile phone. That was all. The rental agreement was for the Buick. Rented at the Atlanta airport, Monday morning at eight. An early flight in from somewhere. I went through the wallets. No airline tickets. Florida driver’s licenses, both with Jacksonville addresses. Bland photographs, meaningless names. Credit cards to match. Lots of cash in the wallets. I stole it all. They weren’t going to spend it.
I took the battery out of the mobile phone and put the phone in one guy’s pocket and the battery in the other’s. Then I dragged the bodies over to the Buick and heaved them into the trunk with Spivey. Not easy. They weren’t tall guys, but they were floppy and awkward. Made me sweat, despite the chill. I had to shove them around to get them both in the space Spivey was leaving. I scouted around and found their revolvers. Both .38 caliber. One had a full load. The other had fired once. Smelled recent. I pitched the guns into the trunk. Found the passenger’s shoes. The Desert Eagle had blown him right out of them. I threw them in the trunk and slammed the lid. Walked back into the field and found my hiding place in the bushes. Where I’d shot them from. Scrabbled around and picked up the two shell cases. Put them in my pocket.
Then I locked up the Buick and left it. Popped the Bentley’s trunk. Pulled out the bag with my old clothes in it. My new gear was covered in red mud and streaked with the dead guys’ blood. I put the old things back on. Balled up the muddy bloodstained stuff and shoved it in the bag. Threw the bag in the Bentley’s trunk and closed the lid on it. Last thing I did was use a tree branch to sweep away all the footprints I could see.
I drove the Bentley slowly back east to Margrave and used the time to calm down. A straightforward ambush, no technical difficulty, no real danger. I had thirteen years of hard time behind me. I should be able to walk through a one-on-two against amateurs in my sleep. But my heart was thumping harder than it should have been and a cold blast of adrenaline was shaking me up. It was the sight of Spiveylying there with his legs folded sideways that had done it. I breathed hard and got myself under control. My right arm was sore. Like somebody had hit my palm with a hammer. It jarred all the way up to the shoulder. That Desert Eagle had a hell of a recoil. And it made a hell of a noise. My ears were still ringing from the twin explosions. But I felt good. It had been a job well done. Two tough guys had followed me out there. They weren’t following me back.
I PARKED UP IN THE STATION HOUSE LOT, FARTHEST SLOT from the door. Put my gun back in the glove compartment and got out of the car. It was getting late. The evening gloom was gathering. The huge Georgia sky was darkening. Turning a deep inky shade. The moon was coming up.
Roscoe was at her desk. She got up when she saw me and walked over. We went back out through the door. Walked a few paces. Kissed.
“Anything from the car rental people?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “Picard’s dealing with it. He’s doing his best.”
“OK,” I said. “What hotels you got up at the airport?”
She reeled off a list of hotels. Pretty much the same list you got at any airport. I picked the first name she’d listed. Then I told her what had happened with the two Florida boys. Last week, she’d have arrested me for it. Sent me to the chair. Now, her reaction was different. Those four men who had padded through her place in their rubber shoes had changed her mind about a lot of things. So she just nodded and smiled a tight grim smile of satisfaction.
“Two down,” she said. “Good work, Reacher. Were they the ones?”
“From last night?” I said. “No. They weren’t local. We can’t count them in Hubble’s ten. They were hired help from outside.”
“Were they any good?” she asked.
I shrugged at her. Rocked my hand from side to side, equivocally.
“Not really,” I said. “Not good enough, anyway.”
Then I told her what I had found in the Buick’s trunk. She shivered again.
“So is he one of the ten?” she asked. “Spivey?”
I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “I can’t see it. He was outside help, too. Nobody would have a slug like that on the inside.”
She nodded. I opened up the Bentley and got the gun out of the glove box. It was too big to go in my pocket. I put it back in the old file box with the bullets. Roscoe put the whole thing in the trunk of her Chevy. I got the carrier bag of stained clothes out. Locked the Bentley up and left it there in the police lot.
“I’m going to call Molly again,” I said. “I’m getting in pretty deep. I need some background. There are things I don’t understand.”
The place was quiet so I used the rosewood office. I dialed the Washington number and got Molly on the second ring.
“Can you talk?” I asked her.
She told me to wait, and I heard her get up and close her office door.
“It’s too soon, Jack,” she said. “I can’t get the stuff until tomorrow.”
“I need background,” I said. “I need to understand this international stuff Joe was doing. I need to know why things are happening here, if the action is supposed to be overseas.”
I heard her figuring out where to start.
“OK, background,” she said. “I guess Joe’s assumption was it’s maybe controlled from this country. And it’s a very difficult problem to explain, but I’ll try. The forging happens abroad, and the trick is most of it stays abroad. Only a few of the fake bills ever come back here, which is not a huge deal domestically, but obviously it’s something we want to stop. But abroad, it presents a completely different type of problem. You know how much cash is inside the U.S., Jack?”
I thought back to what the bank guy had told me.
“A hundred and thirty billion dollars,” I said.
“Right,” she said. “But exactly twice that much is held offshore. That’s a fact. People all over the world are holding onto two hundred and sixty billion dollars’ worth of American cash. It’s in safety deposits in London, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, stuffed into mattresses all over South America, Eastern Europe, hidden under floorboards, false walls, in banks, travel agencies, everywhere. And why is that?”
“Don’t know,” I said.
“Because the dollar is the world’s most trusted currency,” she said. “People believe in it. They want it. And naturally, the government is very, very happy about that.”
“Good for the ego, right?” I said.
I heard her change the phone to the other hand.
“It’s not an emotional thing,” she said. “It’s business. Think about it, Jack. If there’s a hundred-dollar bill in somebody’s bureau in Bucharest, that means somebody somewhere once exchanged a hundred dollars’ worth of foreign assets for it. It means our government sold them a piece of paper with green and black ink on it for a hundred bucks. Good business. And because it’s a trusted currency, chances are that hundred-dollar bill will probably stay in that bureau in Bucharest for many years. The U.S. will never have to deliver the foreign assets back again. As long as the dollar stays trusted, we can’t lose.”
“So what’s the problem?” I asked her.
“Difficult to describe,” Molly said. “It’s all about trust and faith. It’s almost metaphysical. If foreign markets are getting flooded with fake dollars, that doesn’t really matter in itself. But if the people in those foreign markets find out, then it does matter. Because they panic. They lose their faith. They lose their trust. They don’t want dollars anymore. They’ll turn to Japanese yen or German marks to stuff their mattresses with. They’ll get rid of their dollars. In effect, overnight, the government would have to repay a two-hundred-sixty-billion-dollar
foreign loan. Overnight. And we couldn’t do that, Jack.”
“Big problem,” I said.
“That’s the truth,” she said. “And a remote problem. The fakes are all made abroad, and they’re mostly distributed abroad. It makes sense that way. The factories are hidden away in some remote foreign region, where we don’t know about them, and the fakes are distributed to foreigners who are happy as long as the stuff looks vaguely like real dollars are supposed to look. That’s why not very many are imported. Only the very best fakes come back to the States.”
“How many come back?” I asked her.
I heard her shrug. A little breath sound, like she had pursed her lips.
“Not many,” she said. “A few billion, now and then, I guess.”
“A few billion?” I said. “That’s not many?”
“A drop in the ocean,” she said. “From a macroeconomic point of view. Compared to the size of the economy, I mean.”
“And what exactly are we doing about it?” I asked her.
“Two things,” she said. “First thing is Joe was trying like mad to stop it from happening. The reason behind that is obvious. Second thing is we’re pretending like mad it isn’t happening at all. So as to keep the faith.”
I nodded. Started to see some shape behind the big-time secrecy going on up there in Washington.
“OK,” I said. “So if I were to call the Treasury and ask them about it?”
“We’d deny everything,” she said. “We’d say, what counterfeiting?”
I WALKED THROUGH THE SILENT SQUAD ROOM AND JOINED Roscoe in her car. Told her to drive out toward Warburton. It was dark when we reached the little stand of trees. Just enough moonlight to pick it out. Roscoe pulled up where I showed her. I kissed her and got out. Told her I’d see her up at the hotel. Slapped lightly on the Chevy’s roof and waved her off. She turned in the road. Drove slowly away.
