by Lee Child
I said nothing. Just drove slow, keeping the car steady and level through the coastal curves.
“It usually lasts about an hour,” she said.
“Have you told your husband?” I asked.
“What could he do?”
“Fire the guy.”
“Not possible,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because Paulie doesn’t work for my husband.”
I glanced at her. Recalled telling Duke: You should get rid of him. Duke had answered: That’s not easy.
“So who does he work for?” I said.
“Somebody else.”
“Who?”
She shook her head. It was like she couldn’t speak the name.
“It’s a control thing,” she said again. “I can’t object to what they do to me, just like my husband can’t object to what they do to him. Nobody can object. To anything, you see. That’s the point. You won’t be allowed to object to anything, either. Duke wouldn’t think to object, of course. He’s an animal.”
I said nothing.
“I just thank God I have a son,” she said. “Not a daughter.”
I said nothing.
“Last night was very bad,” she said. “I was hoping he would start leaving me alone. Now that I’m getting old.”
I glanced at her again. Couldn’t think of anything to say.
“It was my birthday yesterday,” she said. “That was Paulie’s present to me.”
I said nothing.
“I turned fifty,” she said. “I suppose you don’t want to think about a naked fifty-year-old, parading around.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“But I keep in shape,” she said. “I use the gym when the others aren’t around.”
I said nothing.
“He pages me,” she said. “I have to carry a pager at all times. It buzzed in the middle of the night. Last night. I had to go, right away. It’s much worse if I keep him waiting.”
I said nothing.
“I was on my way back when you saw me,” she said. “Out there on the rocks.”
I pulled onto the side of the road. Braked gently and stopped the car. Eased the gearshift into Park.
“I think you work for the government,” she said.
I shook my head.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “I’m just a guy.”
“Then I’m disappointed.”
“I’m just a guy,” I said again.
She said nothing.
“You shouldn’t say stuff like that,” I said. “I’m in enough trouble already.”
“Yes,” she said. “They’d kill you.”
“Well, they’d try,” I said. Then I paused. “Have you told them what you think?”
“No,” she said.
“Well don’t. And you’re wrong anyway.”
She said nothing.
“There’d be a battle,” I said. “They’d come for me and I wouldn’t go quietly. People would get hurt. Richard, maybe.”
She stared at me. “Are you bargaining with me?”
I shook my head again.
“I’m warning you,” I said. “I’m a survivor.”
She smiled a bitter smile.
“You have absolutely no idea,” she said. “Whoever you are, you’re in way over your head. You should leave now.”
“I’m just a guy,” I said. “I’ve got nothing to hide from them.”
The wind rocked the car. I could see nothing but granite and trees. We were miles from the nearest human being.
“My husband is a criminal,” she said.
“I figured that,” I said.
“He’s a hard man,” she said. “He can be violent, and he’s always ruthless.”
“But he’s not his own boss,” I said.
“No,” she said. “He isn’t. He’s a hard man who literally quakes in front of the person who is his boss.”
I said nothing.
“There’s an expression,” she said. “People ask, why do bad things happen to good people? But in my husband’s case, bad things are happening to a bad person. Ironic, isn’t it? But they are bad things.”
“Who does Duke belong to?”
“My husband. But Duke’s as bad as Paulie, in his way. I wouldn’t care to choose between them. He was a corrupt cop, and a corrupt federal agent, and a killer. He’s been in prison.”
“Is he the only one?”
“On my husband’s payroll? Well, he had the two bodyguards. They were his. Or they were provided for him, anyway. But they were killed, of course. Outside Richard’s college. By the men from Connecticut. So yes, Duke’s the only one now. Apart from the mechanic, of course. But he’s just a technician.”
“How many has the other guy got?”
“I’m not sure. They seem to come and go.”
“What exactly are they importing?”
She looked away. “If you’re not a government man, then I guess you wouldn’t be interested.”
I followed her gaze toward the distant trees. Think, Reacher. This could be an elaborate con game designed to flush me out. They could all be in it together. His gate man’s hand on his wife’s breast would be a small price for Beck to pay for some crucial information. And I believed in elaborate con games. I had to. I was riding one myself.
“I’m not a government man,” I said.
“Then I’m disappointed,” she said again.
I put the car in Drive. Held my foot on the brake.
“Where to?” I asked.
“Do you think I care where the hell we go?”
“You want to get some coffee?”
“Coffee?” she said. “Sure. Go south. Let’s stay well away from Portland today.”
I made the turn south onto Route One, about a mile short of I-95. It was a pleasant old road, like roads used to be. We passed through a place called Old Orchard Beach. It had neat brick sidewalks and Victorian streetlights. There were signs pointing left to a beach. There were faded French flags. I guessed Quebec Canadians had vacationed there before cheap airfares to Florida and the Caribbean had changed their preferences.
“Why were you out last night?” Elizabeth Beck asked me.
I said nothing.
“You can’t deny it,” she said. “Did you think I hadn’t seen you?”
“You didn’t react,” I said.
“I was in Paulie mode,” she said. “I’ve trained myself not to react.”
I said nothing.
“Your room was locked,” she said.
“I climbed out the window,” I said. “I don’t like to be locked in.”
“What did you do then?”
“I took a stroll. Like I thought you were doing.”
“Then you climbed back in?”
I nodded. Said nothing.
“The wall is your big problem,” she said. “There are the lights and the razor wire, obviously, but there are sensors too, in the ground. Paulie would hear you from thirty yards away.”
“I was just getting some air,” I said.
“No sensors under the driveway,” she said. “They couldn’t make them work under the blacktop. But there’s a camera on the lodge. And there’s a motion alarm on the gate itself. Do you know what an NSV is?”
“Soviet tank-turret machine gun,” I said.
“Paulie’s got one,” she said. “He keeps it by the side door. He’s been told to use it if he hears the motion alarm.”
I breathed in, and then I breathed out. An NSV is more than five feet long and weighs more than fifty-five pounds. It uses cartridges four and a half inches long and a half-inch wide. It can fire twelve of them in a second. It has no safety mechanism. The combination of Paulie and an NSV would be nobody’s idea of fun.
“But I think you swam,” she said. “I can smell the sea on your shirt. Very faintly. You didn’t dry yourself properly when you got back.”
We passed a sign for a town called Saco. I coasted to the shoulder and stopped again. Cars and tr
ucks whined past us.
“You were incredibly lucky,” she said. “There are some bad riptides off the point. Strong undertow. But I expect you went in behind the garages. In which case you missed them by about ten feet.”
“I don’t work for the government,” I said.
“Don’t you?”
“Don’t you think you’re taking a hell of a chance?” I said. “Let’s say I wasn’t exactly what I appeared to be. Just for the sake of argument. Let’s say I was from a rival organization, for instance. Don’t you see the risk? You think you would make it back to the house alive? Saying what you’re saying?”
She looked away.
“Then I guess that will be the test,” she said. “If you’re a government man, you won’t kill me. If you’re not, you will.”
“I’m just a guy,” I said. “You could get me in trouble.”
“Let’s find coffee,” she said. “Saco is a nice town. All the big mill owners lived there, way back.”
We ended up on an island in the middle of the Saco River. There was an enormous brick building on it that had been a gigantic mill, way back in history. Now it was being gentrified into hundreds of offices and stores. We found a glass-and-chrome coffee shop called Café Café. A pun in French, I guessed. But the smell alone was worth the trip. I ignored the lattes and the flavored foamy stuff and ordered regular coffee, hot, black, large. Then I turned to Elizabeth Beck. She shook her head.
“You stay,” she said. “I’ve decided to go shopping. Alone. I’ll meet you back here in four hours.”
I said nothing.
“I don’t need your permission,” she said. “You’re just my driver.”
“I don’t have any money,” I said.
She gave me twenty bucks from her purse. I paid for the coffee and carried it to a table. She came with me and watched me sit down.
“Four hours,” she said. “Maybe a little more, but no less. In case there’s something you need to do.”
“I’ve got nothing to do,” I said. “I’m just your driver.”
She looked at me. Zipped her purse. The space around my table was tight. She twisted a little to get the strap of her purse square on her shoulder. Jackknifed slightly to avoid touching the table and spilling my coffee. There was a clunk, like plastic hitting the floor. I looked down. Something had fallen out from under her skirt. She stared at it and her face slowly turned a deep shade of red. She bent and picked the thing up and clutched it in her hand. Fumbled her way onto the chair opposite me like all the strength had gone out of her. Like she was utterly humiliated. She was holding a pager. It was a black plastic rectangle a little smaller than my own e-mail device. She stared at it. Her neck was bright red all the way down under her sweater. She spoke in a low rueful whisper.
“He makes me carry it there,” she said. “Inside my underpants. He likes it to have what he calls the appropriate effect when it buzzes. He checks that it’s there every time I go through the gate. Normally I take it out and put it in my bag afterward. But I didn’t want to do that, you know, this time, with you watching.”
I said nothing. She stood up. Blinked twice and took a breath and swallowed.
“Four hours,” she said. “In case there’s something you need to do.”
Then she walked away. I watched her go. She turned left outside the door and disappeared. An elaborate con game? It was possible that they could try to set me up with her story. Possible that she could carry a pager in her pants to back it up. Possible that she could contrive to shake it loose at exactly the right moment. All possible. But what wasn’t even remotely possible was that she could manufacture a deep red blush, right on cue. Nobody can do that. Not even the world’s finest actress at the peak of her powers could do that. So Elizabeth Beck was for real.
I didn’t abandon sensible precautions entirely. They were too deeply ingrained for that. I finished my coffee like an innocent person with all the time in the world. Then I strolled out to the mall’s internal sidewalks and turned random lefts and rights until I was sure I was alone. Then I went back to the coffee shop and bought another cup. Borrowed their restroom key and locked myself in. Sat on the lid of the john and took off my shoe. There was a message waiting from Duffy: Why interest in Teresa Daniel’s real name? I ignored it and sent: Where is your motel? Ninety seconds later she answered: What did you have for breakfast first day in Boston? I smiled. Duffy was a practical woman. She was worried my e-mail device had been compromised. She was asking a security question. I sent: Short stack with egg, coffee, three-dollar tip, I ate it. Any other answer than that and she would be running for her car. Ninety seconds later she came back with: West side of Route One 100 yards south of Kennebunk River. I figured that was about ten miles away. I sent: See you in 10 minutes.
It took me more like fifteen minutes by the time I had gotten back to the car and fought the traffic where Route One bottlenecked through Saco. I kept one eye on the mirror the whole way and saw nothing to worry about. I crossed the river and found a motel on my right. It was a cheerful bright gray place pretending to be a string of classic New England saltboxes. It was April and not very busy. I saw the Taurus I had been a passenger in out of Boston parked next to the end room. It was the only plain sedan I could see. I put the Cadillac thirty yards away behind a wooden shed hiding a big propane tank. No sense in leaving it visible to everybody passing by on Route One.
I walked back and knocked once and Susan Duffy opened the door fast and we hugged. We just went straight into it. It took me completely by surprise. I think it took her by surprise, too. We probably wouldn’t have done it if we had thought about it first. But I guess she was anxious and I was stressed and it just happened. And it felt real good. She was tall, but she was slight. My hand spanned almost the whole width of her back and I felt her ribs give a little. She smelled fresh and clean. No perfume. Just skin, not long out of the shower.
“What do you know about Teresa?” she asked.
“You alone?” I asked.
She nodded. “The others are in Portland. Customs says Beck’s got a boat coming in today.”
We let go of each other. Moved on into the room.
“What are they going to do?” I asked.
“Observation only,” she said. “Don’t worry. They’re good at it. Nobody will see them.”
It was a very generic motel room. One queen bed, a chair, a desk, a TV, a window, a through-the-wall air conditioner. The only things that distinguished it from a hundred thousand other motel rooms were a blue-and-gray color scheme and nautical prints on the wall. They gave it a definite New England coastal flavor.
“What do you know about Teresa?” she asked again.
I told her about the name carved into the basement room floor. And the date. Duffy stared at me. Then she closed her eyes.
“She’s alive,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Well, she was alive yesterday,” I said.
She opened her eyes. “You think she’s alive today?”
I nodded. “I think the odds are pretty good. They want her for something. Why keep her alive nine weeks and kill her now?”
Duffy said nothing.
“I think they just moved her,” I said. “That’s all. That’s my best guess. The door was locked in the morning, she was gone by the evening.”
“You think she’s been treated OK?”
I didn’t tell her what Paulie liked to do with Elizabeth Beck. She already had enough to worry about.
“I think she scratched her name with a fork,” I said. “And there was a spare plate of steak and potatoes lying around last night, like they took her out in such a hurry they forgot to tell the cook. So I think they were probably feeding her. I think she’s a prisoner, plain and simple.”
“Where would they have taken her?”
“I think Quinn’s got her,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because it seems to me what we’re looking at here is one organization superimposed over another. B
eck’s a bad guy for sure, but he’s been taken over by a worse guy.”
“Like a corporate thing?”
“Exactly,” I said. “Like a hostile takeover. Quinn’s put his staff into Beck’s operation. He’s riding it like a parasite.”
“But why would they move Teresa?”
“A precaution,” I said.
“Because of you? How worried are they?”
“A little,” I said. “I think they’re moving things and hiding things.”
“But they haven’t confronted you yet.”
I nodded. “They’re not really sure about me.”
“So why are they taking a risk with you?”
“Because I saved the boy.”
She nodded. Went quiet. She looked a little tired. I guessed maybe she hadn’t slept at all since I asked her for the car at midnight. She was wearing jeans and a man’s Oxford shirt. The shirt was pure white and neatly tucked in. The top two buttons were undone. She was wearing boat shoes over bare feet. The room heat was set on high. There was a laptop computer on the desk, next to the room phone. The phone was a console thing all covered in fast-dial buttons. I checked the number and memorized it. The laptop was plugged through a complex adapter into a data port built into the base of the phone. There was a screensaver playing on it. It showed the Justice Department shield drifting around. Every time it reached the edge of the screen it would bounce off in a new random direction like that ancient video tennis game. There was no sound with it.
“Have you seen Quinn yet?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Know where he operates out of?”
I shook my head again. “I haven’t really seen anything. Except their books are coded and they don’t have enough of a distribution fleet to be moving what they seem to move. Maybe their customers collect.”
“That would be insane,” she said. “They wouldn’t show their customers their base of operations. In fact we already know they don’t. Beck met with the LA dealer in a parking garage, remember.”
“So maybe they rendezvous somewhere neutral. For the actual sales. Somewhere close by, in the northeast.”
She nodded. “How did you see their books?”
