A Wanted Man: (Jack Reacher 17)

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A Wanted Man: (Jack Reacher 17) Page 37

by Lee Child


  ‘The nuclear waste?’ Delfuenso said. ‘It’s a capital reserve? Their version of the gold in Fort Knox? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Reacher said. ‘It sits there and backs their currency. Which they invented. They don’t deal in dollars or pounds or euros or yen. Remember the on-line chatter? They were talking about gallons. That’s what they call their currency unit. They buy and sell in gallons. This bomb costs a hundred gallons, that bomb costs five hundred gallons. Wadiah keeps track of the deals. They take deposits, they process payments, they shuffle balances from one account to another, they make a profit from their fees. Like any bank. Except they don’t use computers, because we can hack computers. It’s all on paper. Which is why McQueen wouldn’t let me burn the place down. Because you guys need names and addresses. It’s like a regular terrorist encyclopedia in there.’

  Delfuenso looked at McQueen. She said, ‘Is he right?’

  McQueen said, ‘Apart from one minor point.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Those tanks are empty. They’re completely harmless. They were built but never used. They’re surplus. That’s why they’re in there. Surplus equipment in a surplus building.’

  ‘Did Wadiah know they were empty?’

  ‘Sure,’ McQueen said. ‘Not that they ever admitted it to their clients.’

  Delfuenso smiled, just briefly.

  ‘I’m living the dream,’ she said. ‘I just shot a couple of crooked bankers.’

  Delfuenso started the car again and rolled slowly south. Reacher sprawled in the back. Delfuenso and McQueen talked in the front, professionally, one agent to another, assessing the operation, evaluating the result. They ran through all the details, from the inside perspective, and from the outside. She told him about Sorenson. They agreed her fate was the only item in the debit column. Other than that they agreed the outcome was more than satisfactory. Spectacular, even. A major score. A treasure trove of information, and a complex system dismantled. Then McQueen told her the only remaining loose end was the identity of the big boss. Not Peter King, as previously thought. Delfuenso blinked and stopped the car on a lonely kerb in the middle of nowhere.

  She said, ‘I got some news from Quantico. When I called them about Whiteman. We heard from the State Department again. But not from their PR people this time. I think this one is genuine.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘They have no staffer named Lester L. Lester, Jr. Never did. They never heard of him.’

  ‘CIA?’

  ‘Likewise. Never heard of him. And we can believe them. Because right now all their cards are on the table. They’re depending on us to keep quiet about the guy in the old pumping station.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘He had worked in Pakistan and all over the Middle East. Except he wasn’t running agents. They were running him. He had gone native. He was Wadiah’s mole inside Langley.’

  Delfuenso moved off the kerb and started south again.

  McQueen said, ‘Why did he attack us?’

  ‘He attacked you personally. He had your name. Kansas City’s security is poor, and the CIA watches what we do. They knew we had a mole inside Wadiah. Their mole reported back. The big boss told him to deal with you. So he lured you to a remote location for a meaningless meeting. Simple as that.’

  ‘You did well,’ Reacher said, from the back seat. ‘Fast reactions. The smart money would have been on the other guy.’

  McQueen said, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘The forehead thing was a bit retro, though.’

  ‘It was the way it came out. That’s all. I bent his arm and grabbed the knife, and the blade ended up pretty high, so I thought, why the hell not? Just for old times’ sake.’

  They came off Route 65 where it turned east, onto the small rural road, ready to cut the corner back to the Interstate exit. They passed the Civil War battlefield site, where Americans had fired cannons at Americans for nine long hours. McQueen turned in his seat and looked at Reacher and said, ‘One last thing.’

  Reacher said, ‘What?’

  ‘Tell me how you talk for a minute without using the letter A.’

  Delfuenso said, ‘You were asleep.’

  McQueen said, ‘I haven’t slept for seven months.’

  Reacher said, ‘Easy. Just start counting. One, two, three, four, five, six. And so on. You don’t hit a letter A until you get to a hundred and one. You can even do it real fast and still get nowhere near ninety-nine inside a minute.’

  Delfuenso eased to a stop next to a ragged grassy shoulder. No one spoke. No doubt the FBI had appropriate banter for the occasion. The army sure did. But private jokes are private. So they all sat quiet for a minute. Then Reacher got out and walked away, without looking back, past the first ramp west towards Independence and Kansas City, and onward over the bridge to the eastbound ramp. He put one foot on the shoulder and one in the traffic lane, and he stuck out his thumb, and he smiled and tried to look friendly.

  About the Author

  Lee Child is one of the world’s leading thriller writers. His novels consistently achieve the number-one slot in hardback and paperback on bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, and are translated into over forty languages. Born in Coventry, he now lives in America.

  Visit http://www.leechild.com

  Have you read them all?

  KILLING FLOOR

  Jack Reacher gets off a bus in a small town in Georgia. And is thrown into the county jail, for a murder he didn't commit.

  DIE TRYING

  Reacher is locked in a van with a woman claiming to be FBI. And ferried right across America into a brand new country.

  TRIPWIRE

  Reacher is digging swimming pools in Key West when a detective comes round asking questions. Then the detective turns up dead.

  THE VISITOR

  Two naked women found dead in a bath filled with paint. Both victims of a man just like Reacher.

  ECHO BURNING

  In the heat of Texas, Reacher meets a young woman whose husband is in jail. When he is released, he will kill her.

  WITHOUT FAIL

  A Washington woman asks Reacher for help. Her job? Protecting the Vice-President.

  PERSUADER

  A kidnapping in Boston. A cop dies. Has Reacher lost his sense of right and wrong?

  THE ENEMY

  Back in Reacher's army days, a general is found dead on his watch.

  ONE SHOT

  A lone sniper shoots five people dead in a heartland city. But the accused guy says, 'Get Reacher'.

  THE HARD WAY

  A coffee on a busy New York street leads to a shoot-out three thousand miles away in the Norfolk countryside.

  BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE

  One of Reacher's buddies has shown up dead in the California desert, and Reacher must put his old army unit back together.

  NOTHING TO LOSE

  Reacher crosses the line between a town called Hope and one named Despair.

  GONE TOMORROW

  On the New York subway, Reacher counts down the twelve tell-tale signs of a suicide bomber.

  61 HOURS

  In freezing South Dakota, Reacher hitches a lift on a bus heading for trouble.

  WORTH DYING FOR

  Reacher falls foul of a local clan that has terrified an entire Nebraska county into submission.

  THE AFFAIR

  Six months before the events in Killing Floor, Major Jack Reacher of the US Military Police goes undercover in Mississippi, to investigate a murder.

  Jack Reacher: CV

  Name: Jack Reacher

  (no middle name)

  Born: 29 October

  Height:

  6 foot 5 inches/

  1.95 metres

  Weight:

  220-250 lbs/

  100-113 kg

  Size:

  50-inch/127cm chest,

  3XLT coat, 37-inch/

  95cm inside leg

  Eyes: Blue

&n
bsp; Distinguishing marks:

  Scar on corner of left eye, scar on upper lip

  Education:

  US Army base schools in Europe and the Far East; West Point Military Academy

  Service:

  US Military Police, thirteen years; first CO of the 110th Division; demoted from Major to Captain after six years, mustered out with rank of Major after seven

  Service awards:

  Top row: Silver Star, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit

  Middle row: Soldier's Medal, Bronze Star, Purple Heart

  Bottom row: 'Junk awards'

  Last known address:

  Unknown

  Family:

  Mother, Josephine Moutier Reacher, deceased, French national; Father, Career US Marine, deceased, served in Korea and Vietnam; Brother, Joe, deceased, five years in US Military Intelligence, Treasury Dept

  Special skills:

  Small-arms expert, outstanding on all man-portable weaponry and hand-to-hand combat

  Languages:

  Fluent English and French, passable Spanish

  What he doesn't have:

  Driver's licence; credit cards; Federal benefits; tax returns; dependents

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

  A Random House Group Company

  www.transworldbooks.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain

  in 2012 by Bantam Press

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Copyright © Lee Child 2012

  Lee Child has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409043560

  ISBNs 9780593065730 (cased)

  9780593065723 (tpb)

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can be found at:

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009

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