Chapter 30

The FBI was paying for a lot more bedroom than Reacher needed. That was for sure. The key Agent Devine had handed him belonged to a suite on the eighth floor of the hotel. Reacher had let himself in and explored the space. There was a bathroom with enough gels and liquids to open a store. A living room, full of couches and chairs and cushions, plus a desk and a TV. And the bedroom itself. Reacher walked around the area, then stopped between a pair of ornate king-sized beds near the window. They were giant pieces of furniture but they seemed barely present against the expanse of floor all around. Like islands in an ocean, Reacher thought. He mentally compared them with the army-style cot he had lain on earlier. The contrast was laughable, but he wasn't about to complain. Anything that offered the opportunity to sleep was OK by him. Sleep when you can so that you won't need to when you can't. That was his rule.

Except that when he got into bed he couldn't sleep. That was very unusual for Reacher. He could generally drop off within a couple of minutes, pretty much anywhere, if he put his mind to it. But that night a thought was lurking, indistinct and out of focus, just beyond the boundary of his consciousness. Not just frustration at the lingering gap in his memory. A symptom of some kind of problem. But not something that could be forced into sharpness. Clarity would come. He was sure of that. But it would take time. And until it did, the waiting was evidently going to cost him an unknown number of restless hours.

Reacher was edging closer to pinning down what was bothering him when the room phone rang. It was Knight. She said, "I tried to come find you."

"I'm in 810."

"I know. But I couldn't get off my floor. I'm on seven. The agent from this morning—the one who's apparently my babysitter now—was lurking in the elevator lobby. He sent me back to my room like I was a naughty freshman on a high school field trip."

"Shame. I could use the company."

"What are you doing?"

"Lying in bed, not sleeping."

"Something bothering you?"

"Aside from our babysitters?"

"Maybe I should hit the fire alarm. We could sneak away in all the confusion."

"I like how you think."

"Seriously, though. What's wrong?"

"I don't know. But it has to do with Vidic. I'm asking myself, why is he free?"

"That's obvious. Because the agents did a crappy job of tailing him."

"No. That seems like the obvious answer, I know, but something else is going on here."

"Like what?"

"It's…I'm thinking it's a case of fundamental attribution error."

"The agents made a fundamental error? That's what I said."

"No. Step back. Look at the situation from a distance."

"We were at a distance. We heard the play by play, on speakerphone."

"That's not what I mean. Here's an example. A car ferry leaves port with its cargo doors open. It sinks. The investigation finds that the guy who was supposed to check that the doors were closed was asleep in his bunk when the ship set sail. Whose fault is the accident?"

"The guy who was asleep instead of doing his job."

"What if you found out that the ship's owners had fired a bunch of people to save money? The guy who was supposed to check on the doors was doing three people's jobs. He'd been up for seventy-two hours straight. He was exhausted. He collapsed. He couldn't have checked on the doors. It was physically impossible. Was that his fault?"

"No. The owners were to blame for being tightwads."

"Right. So in our case Vidic isn't free because the agents didn't tail him effectively. He's free because he was able to go to St. Louis in the first place."

"Because someone released him from the van we left him in at the cave."

"Right."

"That had to be Kane."

"But why? Vidic hated Kane. He was about to split. I bet he was planning to kill Kane during that burglary, then lure me there after the fact to take the blame. I bet he was going to kill Fletcher, too. So why would Kane help him?"

"Kane was having some kind of bromance with Fletcher. Maybe he saw Vidic as a rival. Wanted him out of the picture. They could have made a deal. Kane let Vidic out of the van if Vidic promised to leave and never come back."

"Then why release Paris, too? And why leave Fletcher tied up at the house? No. It feels like Kane didn't set out to rescue anyone. Something happened at the cave to make him change course."

"It's obvious what must have happened there. Money. I bet Vidic told Kane about their big cash cow. The Cone Dynamics report. He promised him a piece in return for setting him free."

"That's where I keep winding up. But something doesn't fit."

"What?"

"I don't know. Yet. But there is one other positive from your point of view."

"Go on."

"If Vidic offered Kane big bucks, Kane is going to stay in Vidic's shadow until he gets his hands on the cash. So we find Vidic, you find Kane."

—

Reacher figured that since a federal agency had dragged him to the hotel, it was only fair to order room service breakfast on the government's dime. Pancakes, bacon, and coffee. He dragged the desk over to the window and gazed out while he ate. He could see the Arch. The swell of the river beyond it, heavy and thick and dark. And all the way over into Illinois, far away on the eastern side. He finished the food. Emptied the coffee jug. Took a shower and got dressed. He had been back at his vantage point for ten minutes when there was a knock at his door. It was his babysitter. The guy said, "Time to move. Agent Devine is holding a debrief in a conference room, second floor, starting now. You're invited. Come on."

The conference room was like a scene from a business furniture catalog, Reacher thought. The walls were paneled with cherry wood. It was polished to a deep shine. There were framed oil paintings hanging every six feet, showing well-stocked wagon trains setting out from the historic heart of the city, bound for the West. The tables were formed into a horseshoe. They were perfectly aligned and exactly parallel with the walls. The chairs were made of black mesh material and shiny chrome. A projector was mounted to the ceiling and a screen had been lowered in front of the window, which was hidden by vertical blinds.

Devine was sitting at the head of the table. The agents Reacher had last seen in the lobby the evening before were lined up along both sides. The downtime had done them good. That was clear. There were no more scowls. No more sagging shoulders or slouching backs. Determination was evident on most of the faces. Enthusiasm, even, on a couple.

Knight had taken a chair midway along the far side of the table. The one opposite was open so Reacher lowered himself into it and poured himself a glass of water.

Devine cleared her throat and said, "Folks, let's get under way. I have information for you. There are some tired eyes in Quantico this morning, I can assure you. I've asked Detective Knight and Mr. Reacher to join us for a few minutes out of respect for the contribution they've made to this case. We'll share what we can, then let them take their leave so that we can move on to some of the more official aspects. Any questions before we jump in?"

No one raised their hand.

Devine said, "Some people like to keep good news until the end, but not me. So here's our headline. The techs worked all night with the data they pulled off the memory stick that was recovered from the bench at the pavilion. The one Vidic left, and the man in the hoodie tried to take. It contained one thing. A document that was stolen when a server belonging to a company—Cone Dynamics— was illegally accessed. The techs were able to confirm that the document is genuine. All I can say in this forum is that the contents are extremely—and I mean extremely —sensitive from a national security standpoint. In other words, we were up to our eyeballs in the worst kind of shit. Now we're not. We're free and clear. The nature of our work means that the public will never know what you've done for them. But the Bureau does know, and it will not forget. You should all feel very proud of yourselves."

The agent who was sitting next to Reacher raised her hand. She said, "I don't want to sound like Debbie Downer here, but Vidic is still free. His sidekicks are still free. So what's to stop them from copying this document onto another memory stick and hitting the market again? We could be back at square one by lunchtime."

Devine shook her head. "I'm not a techie so I can't give you the specifics, but this document was formatted in a very unusual way. It uses technology similar to what underpins NFTs, apparently. Non-fungible tokens. I don't know how, but the good news for us is that it means we can be sure it's the original, and no copies have been made."

"What if they hack Cone's computers again? Steal something else?"

"You can never say never . But this incident was a major wake-up call for the company. I'm not exaggerating when I say they have executives facing jail time over it. As soon as the breach came to light, they pulled all their systems offline. They're still offline and that won't change until they get the green light from the Department of Energy. They'll need Secretary level authorization." Devine let that thought hang in the air for a moment. "Any other questions about the memory stick?"

Heads shook all around the table.

Devine said, "OK, then. Let's move on to our second piece of good news. We've picked up a record of a plane ticket that was booked in the name of Kevin Richardson."

She was met with a wall of blank faces. Everyone's except Reacher's.

She said, "Kevin Richardson is one of the aliases Vidic set up for himself. A seat has been booked in that name on a flight from Chicago Midway to Anchorage, Alaska. One way. This afternoon. And get this. Only two other seats on that flight are one-way. One is in another man's name. One is in a woman's name. Both were booked within a minute of Richardson's. And all three bookings came from the same IP address."

Devine caught the look on Reacher's face and said, "That means the same computer was used. Or phone, or iPad, or whatever."

An agent at the far end of the table said, "We're thinking this is Vidic, Kane, and Paris?"

"We are. Vidic used another name from the same set of aliases for the flight into St. Louis. We located him at both the arrival and departure airports on that occasion. We're going to do it again at Midway. The three of them will be off the street by dinnertime."

—

Devine wrapped up the first phase of the meeting and escorted Reacher and Knight to the elevator lobby at the end of the corridor. Before either of them could hit the call button she crossed her arms and said, "First, thank you, again. Without you that report would not be sitting safely in a locked drawer in Quantico. It would be in the possession of goodness knows who. Someone with a very poor disposition regarding the United States, I'm certain."

Reacher said, "Do you know who the wannabe buyer was?"

"No. Not yet. The man in the hoodie was a local loser who thought he was getting a year's pay for an hour's work. It didn't take long to find him, but he hasn't spilled anything useful yet. We have people working with him. Sketch artists. Hypnotists. Our counterintel guys are all over this now. Don't worry. One way or another we'll figure it out. But the most important thing is, our secrets are safe."

"I'll drink to that."

"Now, one last thing. This doesn't need to be said, but I'm going to say it, anyway. Everything connected to Cone Dynamics is top secret. You need to forget you ever heard the name. And you absolutely must not breathe a word about a report getting stolen or a network getting breached. Are we clear?"

Reacher nodded.

Knight said, "Got it."

Devine said, "Thank you, Detective. I'm sure you'll find your shield waiting for you when you get back to Arizona. And I'm sure you'll hang on to it this time. As long as you don't do anything stupid. Anything else stupid, I should say. Like googling Cone Dynamics again. Or leaving them any more convoluted messages."

Knight blushed.

"Well, I hate goodbyes." Devine turned to head to the conference room.

Reacher said, "Wait. I have a question."

Devine turned back and did her best not to frown.

Reacher said, "The document on the memory stick, that we know nothing about. Was a password needed to open it?"

Devine thought for a moment. "No. The tech guy I spoke to was surprised about that. He put it down to the document being copy-protected. Is that important?"

"I don't know. It's certainly sloppy. What if the memory stick got lost? If someone found it, plugged it into their computer, and got served up the secret report right there on their screen? Whether it could be copied would be beside the point."

"Vidic must have been confident he wouldn't lose it. And he didn't care what happened after he got paid for it."

"That's another strange aspect. Vidic is new to this, I guess, but he was missing a step in the process. A safeguard. I've been involved in dozens of cases where things were getting sold that shouldn't have been. Guns. Grenades. Documents. Plans. IDs. Booze. And whoever is in the driver's seat invariably wants the final say."

"In what way?"

"Imagine you're looking to trade item A for payment B. You make the exchange, but you leave A inoperable. You don't provide the key to work it until you're sure B is legit. It's weird that Vidic wouldn't work that way. What if the backpack was empty? What if the cash was counterfeit, or marked in some way? He'd have no recourse."

Knight said, "They already got stiffed once, by the property guys. Maybe he's a slow learner. Not all criminals are very bright."

Devine said, "You're right. But it is weird. I'll make sure to ask Vidic about it when we catch up with him."

Reacher said, "One other thing. At the old mine. The cave, where Vidic and Paris got released. Was a second van there, full of contraband?"

"No."

"Inside the cave, was there a safe?"

"Yes."

"Was it intact?"

"No. It had been broken into. It had been pulled away from the wall and a panel on the back had been cut through. Apparently the equipment that was used had been stored in a toolbox mounted on a truck that was found there. A white one, full of bullet holes. I have no idea what its story is."

"Was the safe empty?"

"Not completely. Some jewelry, I think, and a few other trinkets. They didn't sound valuable. Some papers as well."

"Any cash?"

"Not a penny."