by Lee Child
“You know what?” he said.
I glanced a question at him.
“If he’d said one guy, I wouldn’t have noticed,” he said. “You know, if he’d said stay home, a guy is coming by, I’d have fallen for it. But he said two guys.”
“He made a mistake,” I said.
“I know,” Hubble said. “I can’t believe it. He never makes mistakes.”
I shook my head. Smiled in the dark.
“He made a mistake last Thursday.”
THE BIG CHROME CLOCK ON THE BENTLEY’S DASH SAID MIDNIGHT. I needed this whole deal over and done by five in the morning. So I had five hours. If all went well, that was way more than I needed. If I screwed up, it didn’t matter if I had five hours or five days or five years. This was a once only thing. In and out. In the service we used to say: do it once and do it right. Tonight I was going to add: and do it quickly.
“Hubble?” I said. “I need your help.”
He roused himself and looked over at me.
“How?” he asked.
I spent the last ten minutes of the highway cruise going over it. Over and over it, until he was totally solid. I swung off the highway where it met the county road. Blasted past the warehouses and on down the fourteen miles to town. Slowed as I passed the station house. It was quiet, lights off. No cars in the lot. The firehouse next door looked OK. The town was silent and deserted. The only light showing in the whole place was in the barbershop.
I made the right onto Beckman and drove up the rise to Hubble’s place. Turned in at the familiar white mailbox and spun the wheel through the curves up the driveway. Pulled up at the door.
“My car keys are in the house,” Hubble said.
“It’s open,” I said.
He went to check it out. Pushed at the splintered door gingerly, with one finger, like it might be booby-trapped. I saw him go in. A minute later, he was back out. He had his keys, but he didn’t walk round to the garage. He came back over to me and leaned into the car.
“It’s a hell of a mess in there,” he said. “What’s been going on?”
“I used this place for an ambush,” I said. “Four guys were tramping all over the place looking for me. It was raining at the time.”
He leaned down and looked in at me.
“Were they the ones?” he said. “You know, the ones Kliner would have sent if I’d talked?”
I nodded.
“They had all their gear with them,” I said.
I could see his face in the dim glow from the old dials on the dash. His eyes were wide open, but he wasn’t seeing me. He was seeing what he’d seen in his nightmares. He nodded slowly. Then he reached in and put his hand on my arm. Squeezed it. Didn’t speak. Then he ducked back out and was gone. I was left sitting there, wondering how the hell I’d ever hated the guy a week ago.
I used the time to reload the Desert Eagle. I replaced the four shells I’d used out there on the highway near Augusta. Then I saw Hubble drive his old green Bentley around from the garage. The engine was cold and he was trailing a cloud of white vapor. He gave me a thumbs-up as he passed, and I followed the white cloud down the driveway and down Beckman. We passed by the church and turned left onto Main Street in stately procession. Two fine old cars, nose to tail through the sleeping town, ready to do battle.
Hubble pulled up forty yards shy of the station house. Pulled in to the curb just where I’d told him to. Killed his lights and waited, motor running. I wafted past him and nosed into the police department lot. Parked up in the end slot and got out. Left all four doors unlocked. Pulled the big automatic out of my pocket. The night air was cold and the silence was crushing. I could hear Hubble’s motor idling from forty yards away. I unlatched the Desert Eagle’s safety and the click sounded deafening in the stillness.
I ran to the station house wall and dropped to the ground. Slid forward until I could see in through the bottom of the heavy glass door. Watched and listened. Held my breath. I watched and listened long enough to be sure.
I stood up and clicked the safety back on. Put the gun back in my pocket. Stood there and made a calculation. The firehouse and the station house stood together three hundred yards from the north end of Main Street. Further on up the road, Eno’s was eight hundred yards away. I figured the earliest anybody could get to us would be maybe three minutes. Two minutes to react, and a minute for a fast jog up from Main Street. So we had three minutes. Halve that for a margin of safety, call it ninety seconds, beginning to end.
I ran out to the middle of the county road and waved a signal to Hubble. I saw his car pull away from the curb and I ran over to the firehouse entrance. Stood to the side of the big red door and waited.
Hubble drove up and slewed his old Bentley in a tight turn across the road. Ended up at a right angle, just about lined up with the firehouse entrance, facing away from me. I saw the car lurch as he slammed the shift into reverse. Then he hit the gas and the big old sedan shot backward toward me.
It accelerated all the way and smashed backward into the firehouse door. That old Bentley must have weighed two tons and it tore the metal door right off its mountings with no trouble at all. There was a tremendous crashing and tearing of metal and I heard the rear lights smash and the clang of the fender as it fell off and bounced on the concrete. I was through the gap between the door and the frame before Hubble slammed into drive and dragged clear of the wreckage. It was dark in there, but I found what I was looking for. It was clipped to the side of the fire truck, horizontally, at head height. A bolt cutter, a huge thing, must have been four feet long. I wrenched it out of its mountings and ran for the door.
Soon as Hubble saw me come out, he pulled a wide circle across the road. The back end of his Bentley was wrecked. The trunk lid was flapping and the sheet metal was crunched and screeching. But he did his job. He made the wide turn and lined up with the station house entrance. Paused for a second and floored the gas. Accelerated straight toward the heavy glass doors. This time head on.
The old Bentley smashed through the doors in a shower of glass and demolished the reception desk. Plowed on into the squad room and stopped. I ran in right behind it. Finlay was standing in the middle cell. Frozen in shock. He was handcuffed by his left wrist to the bars separating him from the end cell. Well to the back. Couldn’t have been better.
I tore and shoved at the wreckage of the reception counter and cleared a path behind Hubble. Waved him back. He spun the wheel and reversed into the space I’d cleared. I hauled and shoved the squad room desks out of the way to give him a clear run in front. Turned and gave him the signal.
The front end of his car was as bad as the back. The hood was buckled and the radiator was smashed. Green water was pouring out of the bottom and steam was hissing out of the top. The headlights were smashed and the fender was rubbing the tire. But Hubble was doing his job. He was holding the car on the brake and speeding the motor. Just like I’d told him to.
I could see the car shuddering against the brake. Then it shot forward and hurtled toward Finlay in the middle cell. Smashed into the titanium bars at an angle and ripped them open like a swung ax on a picket fence. The Bentley’s hood flew up and the windshield exploded. Torn metal clanged and screeched. Hubble came to a stop a yard short of where Finlay was standing. The wrecked car settled in a loud hiss of steam. The air was thick with dust.
I dived through the gap into the cell and clamped the bolt cutter on the link fixing Finlay’s wrist to the bars. Leaned on the four-foot levers until the handcuffs sheared through. I gave Finlay the bolt cutter and hauled him through the gap and out of the cell. Hubble was climbing out of the Bentley’s window. The impact had distorted the door and it wouldn’t open. I pulled him out and leaned in and yanked the keys. Then we all three ran through the shattered squad room and crunched over the shards of plate glass where the big doors had been. Ran over to the car and dove in. I started it up and howled backward out of the lot. Slammed into drive and took off down the road toward tow
n.
Finlay was out. Ninety seconds, beginning to end.
32
I SLOWED DOWN AT THE NORTH END OF MAIN STREET AND rolled gently south through the sleeping town. Nobody spoke. Hubble was lying on the rear bench, shaken up. Finlay was beside me in the front passenger seat. Just sitting there, rigid, staring out through the windshield. We were all breathing heavily. We were all in that quiet zone which follows an intense blast of danger.
The clock on the dash showed one in the morning. I wanted to hole up until four. I had a superstitious thing about four o’clock in the morning. We used to call it KGB time. Story was it was the time they chose to go knocking on doors. Four o’clock in the morning. Story was it had always worked well for them. Their victims were at a low ebb at that hour. Progress was easy. We had tried it ourselves, time to time. It had always worked well for me. So I wanted to wait until four, one last time.
I jinked the car left and right, down the service alleys behind the last block of stores. Switched the running lights off and pulled up in the dark behind the barbershop. Killed the motor. Finlay glanced around and shrugged. Going to the barber at one in the morning was no more crazy than driving a hundred-thousand-dollar Bentley into a building. No more crazy than getting locked in a cell for ten hours by a madman. After twenty years in Boston and six months in Margrave, there wasn’t a whole lot left that Finlay was ever going to raise an eyebrow at.
Hubble leaned forward from the backseat. He was pretty shaken up. He’d deliberately driven into three separate crashes. The three impacts had left him battered and jarred. And drained. It had taken a lot to keep his foot jammed down on the gas, heading for one solid object after another. But he’d done it. Not everybody would have. But he was suffering for it now. I slid out of the seat and stood in the alley. Gestured Hubble out of the car. He joined me in the dark. Stood there, a bit unsteady.
“You OK?” I asked him.
He shrugged.
“I guess,” he said. “I banged my knee and my neck hurts like hell.”
“Walk up and down,” I said. “Don’t stiffen up.”
I walked him up and down the dark alley. Ten paces up and back, a couple of times. He was pecking his stride on the left. Maybe the door had caved in and hit his left knee. He was rolling his head around, loosening the jarred muscles in his neck.
“OK?” I said.
He smiled. Changed it to a grimace as a tendon graunched.
“I’ll live,” he said.
Finlay got out and joined us in the alley. He was coming round. He was stretching like he was waking up. Getting excited. He smiled at me in the dark.
“Good job, Reacher,” he said. “I was wondering how the hell you were going to get me out. What happened to Picard?”
I made a gun with my fingers, like a child’s mime. He nodded a sort of partner’s nod to me. Too reserved to go any further. I shook his hand. Seemed like the right thing to do. Then I turned and rapped softly on the service door at the back of the barbershop. It opened up straightaway. The older guy was standing there like he’d been waiting for us to knock. He held the door like some kind of an old butler. Gestured us in. We trooped single file down a passage into a storeroom. Waited next to shelves piled high with barber stuff. The gnarled old man caught up to us.
“We need your help,” I said.
The old guy shrugged. Held up his mahogany palm in a wait gesture. Shuffled through to the front and came back with his partner. The younger old guy. They discussed my request in loud rasping whispers.
“Upstairs,” the younger guy said.
We filed up a narrow staircase. Came out in an apartment above the shop. The two old barbers showed us through to the living room. They pulled the blinds and switched on a couple of dim lamps. Waved us to sit. The room was small and threadbare, but clean. It had a cozy feel. I figured if I had a room, I’d want it to look like that. We sat down. The younger guy sat with us and the older guy shuffled out again. Closed the door. The four of us sat there looking at each other. Then the barber leaned forward.
“You boys ain’t the first to hide out with us,” he said.
Finlay glanced around. Appointed himself spokesman.
“We’re not?” he said.
“No sir, you’re not,” the barber said. “We’ve had lots of boys hiding out with us. And girls too, tell the truth.”
“Like who?” Finlay asked.
“You name it, we had it,” the old guy said. “We’ve had farmworkers’ union boys from the peanut farms. We’ve had farmworkers’ union boys from the peach growers. We’ve had civil rights girls from the voter registration. We’ve had boys who didn’t want their ass sent to Vietnam. You name it, we had it.”
Finlay nodded.
“And now you’ve got us,” he said.
“Local trouble?” the barber asked.
Finlay nodded again.
“Big trouble,” he said. “Big changes coming.”
“Been expecting it,” the old guy said. “Been expecting it for years.”
“You have?” Finlay said.
The barber nodded and stood up. Stepped over to a large closet. Opened the door and waved us over to take a look. It was a big closet, fitted with deep shelves. The shelves were stacked with money. Bricks and bricks of cash held together with rubber bands. It filled the closet from floor to ceiling. Must have been a couple of hundred thousand dollars in there.
“Kliner Foundation’s money,” the old guy said. “They just keep on throwing it at us. Something wrong with it. I’m seventy-four years old. Seventy years, people are pissing all over me. Now people are throwing money all over me. Something wrong with that, right?”
He closed the door on the cash.
“We don’t spend it,” he said. “We don’t spend a cent we don’t earn. We just put it in the closet. You boys going after the Kliner Foundation?”
“Tomorrow there won’t be any Kliner Foundation,” I said.
The old guy just nodded. Glanced at the closet door as he passed by and shook his head. Closed the door on us and left us alone in the small cozy room.
“NOT GOING TO BE EASY,” FINLAY SAID. “THREE OF US AND three of them. They hold four hostages. Two of the hostages are children. We’re not even certain where they’re holding them.”
“They’re at the warehouse,” I said. “That’s for sure. Where else would they be? No manpower available to hold them anyplace else. And you heard that tape. That boomy echo? That was the warehouse, for sure.”
“What tape?” Hubble asked.
Finlay looked at him.
“They had Roscoe make a tape for Reacher,” he said. “A message. To prove they were holding her.”
“Roscoe?” Hubble said. “What about Charlie?”
Finlay shook his head.
“Just Roscoe,” he lied. “Nothing from Charlie.”
Hubble nodded. Smart move, Harvard guy, I thought. The image of Charlie being held down at a microphone with a sharp knife at her throat would have tipped Hubble right over the edge. Right off the plateau, back down to where panic would make him useless.
“The warehouse is where they are,” I said again. “No doubt about it.”
Hubble knew the warehouse well. He’d been working up there most days for a year and a half. So we got him to go over and over it, describing the layout. We found paper and pencil and got him to draw plans. We went over and over the plans, putting in all the doors, the stairs, the distances, the details. We ended up with the sort of drawing an architect would have been proud of.
The warehouse stood in its own compound at the end of the row of four. It was very close in line with the third shed, which was a farmers’ operation. There was a fence running between the two with just a path’s width between it and the metal siding. The other three sides were ringed by the main fence running around the whole complex. That fence ran close to the warehouse across the back and down the far end, but there was plenty of space in front for trucks to turn.
T
he big roller door covered just about the whole of the front wall. There was a small staff door just around the far corner which gave on to the main floor. There was a cage just inside the staff door where the roller door winch was sited. Go in the staff door and turn left, there was an open metal staircase running up to an office. The office was cantilevered way up into the top back corner of the huge shed, hanging there about forty feet above the main floor. The office had big windows and a railed balcony looking down into the shed for supervision. In back, the office had a door leading out to an external fire escape which was another open metal staircase bolted to the outside back wall.
“OK,” I said. “Clear enough, right?”
Finlay shrugged.
“I’m worried about reinforcements,” he said. “Guards on the exterior.”
I shrugged back.
“There won’t be reinforcements,” I said. “I’m more worried about the shotguns. It’s a big space. And there are two kids in there.”
Finlay nodded. Looked grim. He knew what I was saying. Shotguns spray a cone of lead over a big wide angle. Shotguns and children don’t mix. We went quiet. It was nearly two in the morning. An hour and a half to wait. We would leave at three thirty. Get up there at four. My favorite attack time.
THE WAITING PERIOD. LIKE SOLDIERS IN A DUGOUT. LIKE PILOTS before a raid. It was silent. Finlay dozed. He had done this before. Probably many times. He sprawled in his chair. His left arm hung over the side. Half of the shattered handcuff dangled from his wrist. Like a silver bracelet.
Hubble sat upright. He hadn’t done this before. He just fidgeted around, burning energy. Couldn’t blame him. He kept looking over at me. Questions in his eyes. I just kept on shrugging back at him.
Two thirty, there was a knock on the door. Just a soft tap. The door opened a foot. The older of the two old barbers was there. He pointed a gnarled and trembling finger into the room. Aimed straight at me.
“Someone to see you, son,” he said.
Finlay sat up and Hubble looked scared. I signaled them both to stay put. Stood up and pulled the big automatic out of my pocket. Clicked the safety off. The old guy flapped his hand at me and fussed.
