Chapter 24

Knight's first priority was trying not to be sick.

She was in the back of a van, on the floor, in the load space. It was totally dark. There were no windows. No ventilation. The van was moving. Fast. On a twisty, bumpy road. She couldn't change her position easily because her wrists and ankles were tied. And she was sandwiched between two people. Both men. Vidic was on her right. He was still unconscious. One of the guys who had captured her had carried him down the stairs at the house, slung over his shoulder like a sleeping child, while the other had held a gun on her. They'd thrown Vidic in first. Then her. The other man was in the van already. He was the main problem because of how he smelled. He reeked of blood and stale vomit.

Knight was feeling too miserable to worry about where she was being taken, or why. She was focused on breathing through her mouth. Although if there had been a way to stop breathing altogether she might have seriously considered it. Then she pushed the thought away. She tried to summon happy memories. Sun-soaked meadows or breezy beaches. Her mind refused to cooperate. And then the stinky guy started to poke her in the side.

The guy said, "Paris? That you?"

Knight tried to ignore him.

He said, "Paris? I saw them throw Vidic in here. Is he next to you? Is he OK? He looked like he was out cold."

Knight turned her head away.

The guy said, "Paris. It's me. Bowery. Can't you hear me?"

Knight closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. She wanted to scream.

"Listen. This is important. There's something you need to know."

Knight turned her head to face him. "What is it, for God's sake?" She kept her voice to a low hiss. On a surveillance course years ago she'd been told that if you whisper, and your subject can't see you, it's next to impossible for them to recognize your voice. She remembered being dubious at the time, but in the circumstances it seemed worth a try. She figured she might learn something. And failing that, the guy should finally shut up.

"I screwed up. I'm sorry."

"Tell me what happened."

"Well." The guy took a breath. It was ragged, like maybe a few of his front teeth were broken. "I made it to the diner, no problem. Went in. Gave the hostess the name they said I should use. She took me all the way in back. To a booth. I sat. Waited. The guy was late. When he showed up it was weird. He was wearing tennis clothes. I remember feeling pissed, like he kept me hanging around so he could play some dumb game." Bowery's voice faded and he stopped speaking.

Knight said, "So the guy arrived?"

Bowery coughed then said, "Right. He sat down. Unzipped the bag he was carrying. Took out his racket and a laptop. Then told me to look inside. It was unbelievable. Gold. So much of it. I was kind of mesmerized. I gave him the memory stick and he fired up his laptop. Checked it out. It passed muster, like we knew it would. And he told me I was free to go."

"OK. And?"

"The guy was in the way. I couldn't get past him. So I had to go the other way around the booth. It was like a horseshoe. I shuffled on my ass all the way to the other side, dragging the bag behind me. Then a guy's head appeared from the next booth. He knelt on the seat. He leaned over. I felt something on my neck, like a bug had bitten me. I tried to shoo it away but nothing was there. Then I saw the guy's hand. He was holding a syringe. The plunger was all the way down. The vial was empty."

"It knocked you out?"

"Right." Bowery went silent again, aside from the rough wheezing sound as he breathed.

Knight said, "How long were you out?"

Bowery said, "Don't know. When I woke up I was in a weird space. Best I can make out it was a transport container, but it wasn't moving. The inside was split in two by a glass wall. My half was empty. I was lying on the floor when I woke up. It was hard. Cold. The light was harsh. There was no shade. Nothing to soften it. I was dizzy. My mouth was dry. I managed to raise my head and look through to the other half. Another man was there. He was strapped to a chair. Kind of like a dentist's. Or a barber's. There were thick leather straps. Metal buckles. The guy wasn't moving. His head was tipped toward me. His eyes were gone. So were his teeth. His arms were hanging down. His nails had been pulled out. I couldn't see his feet." Bowery drifted away again.

Knight said, "Was he dead?"

Bowery said, "Not yet. Eventually one of the guys I'd seen at the diner came in. The one who roofied me. He was wearing goggles. Rubber boots. Leather apron. He was naked under it. He had a scalpel in his hand. He checked to make sure I was watching. Then he grabbed the guy by his hair. Straightened his neck. And sliced. Just once. That's all it took." Bowery spluttered but didn't say anything else.

Knight said, "The guy killed him?"

Bowery said, "The blood hit the ceiling. It covered the glass wall. It was jetting out like a fire hose. Pulsing. Then it got weaker. The guy's heart gave up, I guess. Finally the blood stopped. They left him like that for hours. Eventually one of them took the body away. I don't know what they did with it. Then they came for me. Dragged me around to the other side of the glass. Made me clean. Scrub up all the blood. If I didn't work fast enough, they hit me. Or kicked me. When I was done cleaning, they made me strip. Put me in the chair. Fastened up the straps. And offered me a choice. Give you two up or get the same treatment as the last guy."

"So you gave us up. That was the right thing to do. Either of us would have done the same."

"I guess. But that's not all. I'm not stupid. I knew they were going to kill me, anyway. At first I just hoped it would be quick. But then I had an idea. I figured I had something I could trade."

"What did you offer them?"

"The report. I'm sorry. I was desperate. I told them I could get it for them if they let me live." Bowery's breathing grew lighter and shallower.

Knight paused. "I need to know exactly what you told them. Every word. Think carefully."

Bowery said, "I told them the expected value. Where it came from. Cone Dynamics. And that they would have to move fast because we have an offer on the table."

"Did you tell them who the offer was from?"

"No. I don't know who it's from."

"Vidic told you there's an offer?"

"Not exactly told. But I did find out from him."

"What kind of timescale is on the offer?"

Bowery groaned but didn't reply.

"Hey, come on. Don't give up on me now."

Bowery still didn't answer.

Knight closed her eyes and nudged him with her elbow.

There was still no response.

Knight jabbed harder. She held her breath and moved her face closer. She saw that Bowery's chest was still rising and falling. He was alive, but consciousness had finally deserted him.

—

Knight realized that the ride had become smoother. The van's heading was straighter. It was no longer careening around bends or racing over sudden crests. She was growing used to Bowery's stench. She risked sitting up. Her stomach felt more settled. So she raised her hands. Started to run them along the metal fins that lined the walls. She just needed one stretch with a jagged edge. She didn't know that the guys who were up front, driving, were the ones Bowery had described with the aprons and the scalpels. Not for sure. But she had a strong suspicion, and no desire to have it confirmed.

—

Paris parked on the gravel driveway outside her home. She took her favorite spot. The one she always used except for when Kane got to it first. He knew she liked it so he blocked it whenever he could, just to annoy her. She wasn't going to miss that kind of nonsense. But she was going to miss the house. This was going to be the last time she set foot in it. Maybe Fletcher had been onto something about the way nostalgia gets triggered.

Paris turned and took her laptop from a tote bag wedged behind the passenger seat, then climbed down. She crossed to the door, unlocked it with the keypad, and led the way inside. She climbed the stairs and paused outside her room. She looked at Reacher and said, "Sorry. You can't come in. Not for a minute."

Reacher said, "Why not?"

"My ledger is hidden. No one can see where."

"You're leaving this house. You're never coming back. Why would it matter if I see your hiding place?"

She glared at him. "Fine. Come in. But stay back. Don't get in the way."

Reacher stood by the door while Paris dropped her laptop on the bed and then rolled up her rug. She closed straight in on the loose floorboard and pried it up. Leaned into the cavity. Retrieved the notebook. Crossed to the bookshelf. Took down the third volume from the left on the top shelf. It was a book on military strategy from Rome to Vietnam. Then she collected her notepad and pen from the table and returned to the bed. She sat down, cross-legged. Flipped the ledger over to its back cover. Opened it. Checked the groups of digits in one of the columns she had created. In its second row. And cross-referenced them with pages of the book. Reacher watched closely. He realized she was picking atypical entries. Tables, mainly, plus a few sets of chapter endnotes. Which meant she wasn't selecting whole words. Just numbers and letters. The kind of things you need if you want to re-create an email address, he guessed.

When Paris was done she opened her laptop and selected her email program. She began a new message. Entered the address, then typed rapidly for a couple of minutes. She read what she'd written then turned the screen so that Reacher could see.

Reacher shook his head and said, "No. I've changed my mind. There's a problem. If the property guy sees this he'll talk to his hired help. They'll realize that we're bluffing."

"We're not. If they don't let Ivan go I'll send that document out in a heartbeat. I'll dig up more dirt and send that, too."

"Not about that. About the timing. Our goal is obvious. We want our people back. Releasing the material is a means to that end, not the end in itself. They'll see that. So if they demand twenty-four hours to comply, what can we do? Forty-eight hours? We'd have to agree. Which would give them plenty of time to set up an ambush, like they must have done with Bowery."

"So are we giving up?"

"No. We're streamlining. I want you to send them something simpler. A picture of the snippet of information that we have with your phone number splashed across it."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"Why?"

"The lack of context will imply a question. Humans are hardwired to seek answers. So he'll call the number. I'll talk to him. Convince him of the urgency."

"You sure that will work?"

Reacher nodded. "One question first. Is it possible to preset an email to send at a certain time in the future?"

"Of course."

"OK, then. Put the image together."

Paris turned back to her keyboard and trackpad and after a couple of minutes' work she showed Reacher the screen again. This time he said, "Good. Go ahead. Send it."

Paris hit a key. "Done. Do you think he'll call?"

"He will. In the meantime, here's another question. The little icons you get on computer screens that represent documents. Can you name them anything you want?"

"Pretty much."

"What's the property company called?"

"Nechells Property Partners, LLC."

"Could you make a document called something like NPP false accounting tranche 2 ?"

"Easily."

"Could it be empty?"

"Of course. Documents always start off empty."

"OK. I want you to write an email with a pretty innocuous message. To whom it may concern, please see the attached file. Something like that. Add the empty NPP document. Just its icon. Address it to the finance desks at all the major papers. Set it to send in, say, three hours. And take a picture of it on the screen."

"A screenshot?"

"If you say so."

Paris got back to work but before she had anything to show Reacher, her phone began to ring. She checked the screen. She said, "Number's blocked," and passed him the handset.

Reacher hit the answer button and said, "Yes?"

The voice on the line said, "Who is this?"

"My name isn't important. What I want is. And what I'll do if I don't get it? That's critical."

"You're wasting my time. Tell me—"

"You saw the sample on your email. Unless I get what I want within three hours, the entire file will be sent to all the national newspapers."

"And what do you want?"

"You, or someone you control, has taken three of my associates. You know the people I'm talking about. They are to be released. I'll send you the coordinates of the place where they are to be left."

"Three hours? That's not possible. I—"

"No. We both know what happened last time. We gave you seventy-two hours. Our man didn't return. We didn't get paid." Reacher pointed to Paris's laptop. She nodded. "Look at your email. You're about to receive a message. Look at it closely. You'll see that the clock is already ticking. The only way to stop it is to release my people. You know where we live. You could call an airstrike on our position and it would make no difference. The email will be sent. Your life, and your company, will be destroyed. Any questions?"

There was only silence on the line.

Reacher said, "Good. Now for the full terms. Your guys are to leave a vehicle at the coordinates you will receive, within three hours. My people will be in that vehicle, safe and well. Your guys will drive away. If they do not have a second vehicle of their own, they can take the white Ford F-150 that will already be there. We don't need it back. No one else will be present on-site, but we'll be watching. Remotely. If you comply, the email will be canceled. If you don't, you can look forward to public humiliation, bankruptcy, and a couple of decades in the Federal pen."

—

Paris closed her laptop and put it and the ledger and the strategy book in a bag she took from her wardrobe. Then she said she needed the bathroom before they got back on the road. Reacher told her he'd wait downstairs. But not out of any sense of modesty. Because he was half expecting her to climb down a drainpipe and make a break for her Land Rover.

Paris made her way down the stairs a few minutes later but she didn't head straight for the front door. She said, "Give me a minute, OK?"

Reacher said, "What is it now?"

"There's something I need to do. In private."

"What?"

"Say goodbye to Gibson. Fletcher stuck his body in our walk-in refrigerator. The unsanitary asshole."

"You said you didn't like Gibson. He was a snitch. You wished someone had killed him."

"So what if I didn't like him? I worked with him. And he's dead. That's enough. We have to be civilized, or what do we have left? Did you love everyone whose funeral you went to?"

—

The van that Knight and the others were being transported in belonged to the Mount Pleasant Tennis Club, from just outside Wichita, Kansas. The club was indeed pleasant. It had six courts, a clubhouse, a convenient parking lot, and a line of mature trees that separated the site from the nearby highway. The trees also screened off the pair of old shipping containers that had sat on the adjacent lot for so long that most of the members had ceased to notice they were there.

The two guys in the cab were the owners of the tennis club. They were looking forward to getting back, especially since they now had two extra guests. The driver turned to his partner and said, "Worth it?"

The guy shrugged. "The property developer thing? Easy money. This side gig? I don't know. The jury's out. Seems too good to be true. How can one report be worth so much? And Cone Dynamics? What kind of a company name is that?"

"You might be right, but where's the harm? Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

"We're going to—" The passenger's phone started to ring. He picked it up, glanced at the screen, and answered. He listened for a moment then hit the speakerphone key.

The voice on the line said, "We have a problem. You have to go back. Return the goods."

The passenger said, "Really? Why?"

"That's need to know, and you don't. But you do need to go back. Now. Today. The goods need to be returned in three hours."

"Not possible. We're already on the road."

"Then go back."

"Tell whoever's squeezing your nuts that we need more time. A couple of days, minimum."

"You have three hours. Not a minute more."

"We're not actually returning anything, right? We're playing along and adding to the collection. That takes time to prepare."

"No. We're returning everything. In two hours fifty-five, now. Sooner if possible."

"What's gotten into you? If there's some kind of problem—"

"Just do it. No debate."

The passenger sighed. "OK. I guess. But it's going to cost extra."

The line went silent for a moment, then the voice said, "How much?"

"Fifty percent."

"Thirty."

"Fifty. Or we keep driving."

"Fine. Now listen up. There are some special instructions this time. They need to be followed to the letter or all hell's going to break loose."