by Jude Hardin
“You want me to put it out of my mind for five years, Kurt? Sorry, but I’m not putting it out of my mind for five seconds.”
Colt stormed out of the faux diner, pushed his way through a double set of doors and exited the soundstage. He weaved his way through the corridors and climbed the stairs to the dormitory on the fourth level. By the time he got to his room, someone was already there waiting for him.
3
Colt didn’t recognize the operative standing at his door, but he recognized the handgun she was pointing at him. It was a Smith and Wesson .40 caliber semi-automatic. Four-inch barrel, eleven-round magazine. It was a nice compact carry weapon capable of boring a nice fat hole into human flesh.
“What are you going to do, shoot me?” Colt said. “I got mad and threw a cup of coffee. Not a capital offense, last I heard.”
“I have instructions to hold you here until Mr. Valinger comes.”
“What’s your name?”
“Not important.”
She reminded Colt of Diana Dawkins, the operative who’d recruited him into The Circle a couple of years ago. Not her looks, but her attitude and the way she carried herself. He knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger if she needed to.
Colt hadn’t heard anything from or about Diana since they worked together on the Sycamore Bluff assignment. They narrowly escaped with their lives on that deal. They had been through a lot together. He considered Diana a friend, and he wondered where she was and how she was doing.
“I’m going to open the door now,” he said. “Will you be joining me?”
“Not necessary.”
Colt figured as much. The dorm rooms didn’t have any windows, so it wasn’t like he was going to escape or anything. He pressed his thumb against the electronic scanner, popped the lock and walked inside and shut the door behind him.
The entire space was about a hundred square feet. There was a twin size bed and a small desk with a laptop and a private bathroom and a short little refrigerator and a microwave and a television. Colt plunked a couple of ice cubes into a glass, twisted the cap off his jug of Old Fitzgerald and poured himself a double. He sat on the bed and clicked on the television and watched a Seinfeld rerun. His nerves had settled considerably by the time someone started banging on his door.
It was Valinger.
Colt let him in.
“Sorry about what happened down there at the soundstage,” Colt said. “I lost my temper, and there’s no excuse for it. All I can say is that it won’t happen again.”
“I know you want to see your wife and daughter, Mr. Colt. I understand that completely. But we do expect our operatives to behave professionally at all times. I was forced to notify The Director about your outburst, and any sort of punishment will be administered by him. In the meantime, he thinks it would be prudent to send a partner along with you on the Jack Reacher assignment.”
“I can handle myself, Kurt. I don’t need a babysitter.”
Colt didn’t understand why Valinger had been forced to contact The Director about a broken coffee cup. Talk about overreacting. Like running and telling the principal in sixth grade when someone shot you with a spitball. The men and women at the top had more important things to think about. Colt had lost his cool for a minute. It was no big deal.
Valinger walked over to the desk and sat down on the chair.
“Got any more of that whiskey?” he said.
Colt fixed Valinger a drink, poured himself another one while he was at it. The bottle was almost empty.
“When you spoke with The Director, did you happen to mention the cause of my anger? That I want to see Juliet and Brittney?”
“I did. He said he would look into it.”
“Thanks. Is the young lady with the gun still outside my door?”
“No. I sent her on her way. I just needed to make sure you didn’t leave the complex before I talked to you. I’m not sure you understand the gravity of the Jack Reacher situation, what he’s capable of if he sets his mind to it.”
“You said he was ex-military, so I assume he’s had some training.”
“A lot. And he’s learned some things on his own through the years. At the briefing tomorrow morning, you will be given a condensed version of his files, about five hundred pages of things you’ll need to know to run the case. My advice is to study those pages carefully. In most businesses knowledge is power. In ours it can mean the difference between living and dying.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Colt said. “Where’s Reacher now?”
“In Virginia, not far from DC. Little town called Rock Creek. If the van was his, he’ll probably try something else soon. He doesn’t like to fail.”
“And if the van wasn’t his?”
“We have other operatives tracking other leads. All you and your partner need to focus on is Jack Reacher. If he wasn’t involved in the attempted bombing, you might find something else on him that we can use. I’m ninety-nine percent certain that Jack Reacher is an enemy of the United States, Nicholas. I would bet my career on it.”
Colt bathed his teeth with another sip of liquor.
“I’m not sure how useful that blurry photograph is going to be,” he said. “I would like to see the video it was taken from.”
“I thought you might,” Valinger said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a flash drive, slid it into one of the USB ports on Colt’s computer.
Colt got up from the bed and walked over to the desk.
“That’s the parking lot outside the restaurant?” he said.
“Yes. Mac’s Diner, Rock Creek, Virginia. This footage came from a camera mounted over the entrance.”
The Ford van was parked in the front row, but it was still probably thirty feet or so from the lens. The light pole two rows behind it cast a harsh glare over the scene, making it difficult to see many details.
“What time of night is this?” Colt said.
“Shortly after eleven. As you can see, there weren’t many cars in the parking lot.”
“Good time to rob a restaurant. Not many people go out to eat that time of night. And the local police were probably busy with shift change reports. No patrol cars happening by.”
“Exactly.”
“So why were Clete Garrison and Felisa Cayenne there at that time?”
“Garrison brought her to the DC area from New York City. He made the late run and then stopped at an out-of-the-way place because of her celebrity status.”
Colt nodded. He stood there and watched the monitor while nothing happened for a few minutes. Then the door on the driver’s side of the Econoline opened and a man climbed out. He was taller than the van. Narrow waist, broad shoulders. He leaned against the side panel and crossed his arms.
“Why did he get out?” Colt said.
“Who knows? He might have been getting antsy because the job was taking longer than expected. Or he might have just needed to stretch his legs.”
Colt wondered if the man’s motivation might have been a little more defined than that. Then he wondered something else.
“Why would Jack Reacher have been involved in a robbery in the first place?” he said.
“For the money. Like I told you, he has no source of steady income. It was Sunday night, and there was a lot of cash in the safe from the weekend. Over ten thousand dollars. The day and time they chose to knock off the place was no accident. They knew what they were doing.”
“Did they get the money?”
“No. You saw what happened in our reenactment down at the soundstage. But if things hadn’t turned out like they did, I have no doubt that the guys in the ski masks would have forced the manager to open the safe.”
“They got Felisa Cayenne instead.”
“Right.”
“And they needed to get out of there quickly after they shot Garrison.”
“Right.”
“Felisa’s one of the most popular singers out there right now,” Colt said. “Plus she has the TV thi
ng.”
“She’s loaded, that’s for sure. Hard to fathom why there hasn’t been a ransom demand.”
“I used to be a musician myself, you know.”
“I know,” Valinger said.
Colt was no stranger to the troubles that sometimes accompanied fame and fortune. He had been the leader of a popular southern rock and blues band in the 1980s. Platinum records, sold out shows. He’d owned mansions on both coasts. He’d driven the finest automobiles and had stayed at the finest hotels. He was a regular on all the major talk shows, and he couldn’t go anywhere without the paparazzi hounding him. But all that came to a screeching halt when a chartered jet crashed and burst into flames, killing his wife Susan and their baby daughter Harmony and all the members of his band. Colt was the sole survivor.
It had been a long time ago, but some things never changed. When you’re famous, you have to watch your back constantly. Felisa Cayenne probably figured she was safe sitting across from a United States Deputy Marshal. But she figured wrong.
Colt watched the video some more. The tall muscular man opened the door and climbed back into the driver’s seat. A couple of minutes later, the two masked bandits rushed across the parking lot and forced Felisa to the back of the van, where they presumably opened the rear hatch and joined her in the cargo area. The headlights came on, and the vehicle eased forward. It stopped abruptly, lurched, and then sped away from the parking area.
“Let’s watch it again,” Colt said. “I think I saw something.”
With the poor lighting and poor resolution, it was hard to determine anything for sure. But it seemed that near the end someone had used a finger to write something on the inside of the van’s grimy windshield.
One word.
HELP.
4
Felisa Cayenne was lying on a cot in a tiny, dimly-lit room in a basement somewhere. Cinderblock walls and a concrete floor. Joists and pipes and electrical wiring overhead, along with one naked forty watt bulb. The door had been fashioned from some sort of heavy steel, and it locked from the outside. There was no escape, and Felisa knew she was going to die. She hadn’t seen their faces, and there was no way she could identify them, but she still had the feeling that they were never going to let her leave this place alive. She felt that it was only a matter of time.
Felisa Cayenne wasn’t her real name, of course, but it was the name everyone knew her by, and she had adopted it as her own some time ago. She barely even remembered her former self, the girl she had been before she became famous. It all started with a third place finish in a nationally televised talent competition. She signed with a major label, and her first album went platinum, and everything just sort of snowballed after that. World tours, television commercials, and—most recently—a show of her own. She’d never done any acting, but the producers told her not to worry about that. With her looks and her popularity, the show would be a guaranteed hit, they said.
And they were right.
Felisa had a lot of money, somewhere, although she never seemed to be able to get her hands on much of it. Accountants and financial advisors were keeping tabs on everything, investing a million here and a million there, most of it in high-end real estate and low-risk mutual funds. Or so they said. Sometimes Felisa wondered if they took secret trips to Las Vegas and threw down big chunks of it at the blackjack tables.
Footsteps.
The rattle of the hasp as the key slid in and the padlock clicked open.
The moan of the hinges as the door swung inward.
It was the one with dark eyebrows. The one named Benny. The nice one. It was the first time he’d been to her room alone.
“I brought you some food,” he said, his voice slightly muffled from the ski mask.
Felisa had no idea what time of day it was, so she didn’t know if this was supposed to be breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Anyway, it was always the same thing: a boneless piece of chicken breast, a serving of rice, and a serving of greens. Collard greens or turnip greens, something like that. Felisa figured the greens came from a can. They had that taste. She never ate more than one bite of them, so she didn’t know why her captors kept bringing them.
Benny set the tray on a little folding table, the kind people use when they want to eat in front of the television. The table and the cot were the only pieces of furniture in the room.
“Thank you,” Felisa said. “Have my people gotten back to you yet?”
“No.”
“It’s been almost a week. Are you sure you called the right office?”
“We haven’t called anyone. And we’re not going to.”
“I thought you wanted money. I have plenty. I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“You must think we’re stupid,” Benny said.
He left the room and locked the door, his footsteps fading as he walked away from the makeshift little dungeon that Felisa believed would soon become her tomb.
5
The smear on the windshield turned out to be nothing. Or maybe it was something, but the resolution on the video was too poor to make it out. Plus the glare from the light pole. Valinger dismissed the whole theory, said it was probably just the driver wiping a clean spot in order to see better. Colt still thought it might have been some sort of plea for help, but it was Valinger’s call. Everything was Valinger’s call. At least he allowed Colt to keep the flash drive for future reference. Colt wanted to take another look at the video footage when he had more time.
After the meeting the next morning, Colt was given a briefcase containing two volumes of information on Jack Reacher, along with some photos and some other miscellaneous items. He was then put on a private jet and flown to a private airstrip somewhere in Virginia. A helicopter ferried him to a cabin in the woods near Rock Creek and left him there alone.
It was a small place with board and batten siding and a metal roof. Diesel generator, well and septic. Totally off the grid. Extremely isolated, yet close enough to DC for a daily commute.
And practically walking distance to Rock Creek.
The property was on a slope that led to a decent-sized lake. There was a narrow concrete boat ramp where land met water, and the helicopter had used it for a landing pad. Supposedly, another operative from The Circle would be joining Colt later in the day. His partner for the assignment. Yippee. Colt couldn’t wait.
There was a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a topper parked on a strip of gravel beside the house. Colt opened the passenger’s side door, lifted the floor mat and found a set of keys, right where Valinger had said they would be. He climbed the redwood deck at the rear of the house, unlocked the door and tried to open it, but it was stuck. He jiggled the knob and lifted up on it and pushed with his shoulder, and it finally swung inward. He walked inside, immediately relieved from the extreme heat and humidity. Colt had lived in Florida most of his life, and he liked the summer season, but there was something downright oppressive about the July weather in this part of the country. Almost like you were melting and drowning at the same time. He wondered how people had ever survived before the invention of air conditioners.
There was a living room and a kitchen in front, open floor plan, and two small bedrooms at the end of a short hallway in back. Everything fully furnished. One small bathroom with a sink and a toilet and a shower stall. It took Colt about sixty seconds to tour the whole place. He picked a bedroom, set the briefcase on the dresser and heaved his duffel onto the mattress and unzipped the flap. He’d doubted that the accommodations would come with any sort of fermented refreshments, so he’d brought his own. Brand new jug of Old Fitz, protected by shirts and pants and socks and underwear. He took the bottle out first, carried it to the kitchen and stowed it in the pantry. The little closet was crammed full of canned goods and dried pasta, cooking oil and cornmeal and cartons of vegetable stock for soup. All kinds of stuff. He had to remove a box of saltines to make room for the whiskey. He set the crackers on the counter and went back to the bedroom to finish unpacking.
>
The generator was a good distance from the house, and it wasn’t as noisy as Colt thought it might be. Valinger had said not to worry about refueling it, that it would be taken care of. Which was nice.
Colt opened the briefcase and grabbed volume one of The Jack Reacher Files, fixed himself a drink and sat down at the kitchen table.
A few hours later, he’d only scratched the surface, but he did know a little more about Reacher than when he started. His father, Stan Reacher, had been an officer in the Marine Corps, which meant that young Jack had been subjected to the ways of the military starting at day one. Rigid schedules, multiple moves, friendships that came and went like fallen leaves in the wind. At one point the army determined that the boy was genetically predisposed to high levels of aggression, but Colt wondered if the tail had wagged the dog on that deal. Tell a kid he’s a mean little punk often enough and he might really become one.
Thinking about Reacher’s childhood made Colt think about his own. His mother died in a car accident when he was five. That was the first traumatic event, if you didn’t count dear old Dad bailing on the family two years earlier.
Colt had a picture in his head of how beautiful his mother was, and he remembered the way she smelled. He remembered the warmth of her embrace, the coolness of her hand on his head when he had a fever. The songs on the radio. The hamburgers and French fries and slices of chocolate pie. The swings and slides at the park and the city lights at night and the movies at the drive-in. The sun on her hair when she planted flowers. You never get over losing your mother, no matter what age it happens.
Colt’s stepfather raised him after the accident, which would have been okay if not for the regular physical and verbal thrashings.
The drunken rages.
The barroom women brought home for one night stands, the stench of their cigarette smoke and cheap perfume lingering long after they were gone.
