Better off Dead

Chapter 51

I got woken up at a minute to seven. By my phone. I was dead asleep one moment. Wide awake the next. Like a switch being thrown. Some kind of instinctive response to anything unnatural. Or threatening.

I figured the electronic howl qualified as both.

I answered the call. It was the FBI. One of the special agents who Wallwork had rounded up to guard Michael. Her team had reached the outskirts of town and she wanted to know where we should rendezvous. I gave her directions. Then lay back down and closed my eyes. An argument was brewing in my head. The thought of taking a shower on one side. The appeal of not moving on the other. Both were persuasive. But neither got the chance to carry the day. Because my phone rang again. It was Wallwork this time.

“News,” he said. “Huge. The pictures and samples my guy sent in from Dendoncker’s bomb? One already hit the jackpot. The transponder? There was a fingerprint on it. They have an ID. The TEDAC guys say it’s solid. Good enough to survive any test in court.”

I said, “Michael Curtis, right?” I figured the day was about to go downhill for Fenton and her brother. Fast. So I might as well get out ahead of it.

“Who? No. It was Nader Khalil.”

“I don’t know who that is.” That was true. Although I had heard the name. Dendoncker accused me of working for the guy.

“Khalil’s a big fish. Very big. I’m told the system lit up like a Christmas tree when it came back with his name. He’s a terrorist. Out of Beirut. One of a family of terrorists. His father was one. He got killed by the police. His brother was one. He got killed, too. A more notorious death. He was driving the truck that carried the Marine barracks bomb. Nader himself has been linked to a dozen different atrocities. But there was never any evidence. Until now.”

It was a strange detail from the past. That Khalil’s brother was driving the barracks truck bomb. He must have died yards away from me. But there was something about the present that didn’t add up. If Michael made the bomb, I couldn’t see how someone else’s fingerprint wound up on part of it.

Wallwork wasn’t done. “A manhunt has started for him. Worldwide. Unlimited resources. The guy’s toast. It’s just a question of when.”

Maybe Khalil had supplied the parts Michael had used, I thought. That could be how his fingerprint got to be there.

Wallwork kept going. “The manhunt is worldwide. But there’s another concern. Closer to home. The TEDAC guys are worried that Khalil is still in the States.”

Or maybe Dendoncker had stolen the parts, I thought. Or refused to pay. Or ripped off Khalil in some other way. That could be why he was expecting a reprisal.

Wallwork continued. “The TEDAC guys are scared that Khalil is ramping up a bombing campaign. Here. And they figure Dendoncker’s helping him. His family was from Beirut, too, remember. His mother was, anyway.”

“They think this on the strength of one fingerprint and a vague connection to a foreign city?”

“No. On the strength of this being the second of Khalil’s bombs that they found.”

“Where was the other one?”

“I’m not sure where it turned up. It was a dud. It was taken to TEDAC. A few weeks ago. It was analyzed. And it had enough identical features for them to be certain it was made by the same person.”

“Did it have a transponder?”

“No. And it didn’t emit gas. But the components came from the same source. The wiring techniques were the same. The architecture was the same. There are enough hallmarks for them to be convinced. More than enough.”

This is the problem when a lie gets too much oxygen. It grows. Even a lie of omission. The smoke bomb had been made by Michael. So if the TEDAC guys had connected it with another one made by the same person, it must be the last bomb Fenton worked on. The one Michael made and sent to her as an SOS. Only the TEDAC guys didn’t know there had been a transponder in that one, too. Or that Fenton had destroyed it. Because of Michael’s fingerprint. If they had known, they’d have reached a different conclusion. I had no doubt about that. I was about to tell Wallwork. Ask him to bring the TEDAC guys up to speed. To correct their misconception. But something stopped me. The nagging at the back of my mind. It had started when Fenton told me about finding Michael’s message. With the card and the condom. It had grown louder with Dendoncker’s weird responses. Now, with all the talk about the Khalil guy, it was practically deafening.

Wallwork was silent for a moment, too. Then he said, “So, they’re worried about what Khalil’s up to. They think Dendoncker is helping him. And you’re the only person who’s been in contact with Dendoncker. Reacher, I might as well just come out and say it. The bosses at TEDAC want to talk to you.”

I wasn’t buying the cooperation angle. Not when Dendoncker seemed to think that Khalil could have sent me to kill him. But there was a connection between them. It was a recipe for nothing good. That was for sure. And I had seen Dendoncker. How he operates. Where he hung out. How much he needed to be taken off the street. So I said, “All right. Have them call me.”

“They don’t want to talk on the phone, Reacher. They want to talk face-to-face.”

I said nothing.

“Think about it. If this goes south there’s the potential for major casualties. Major loss of life. If that happens, and you were in their shoes, could you live with yourself if you hadn’t adequately interviewed the only guy with firsthand information?”

He had a point.

“They only want you for an hour. Two, tops. So, what do you say?”

“I don’t know. When?”

“Today.”

“Where?”

“TEDAC. It’s at the Redstone Arsenal. Near Huntsville, Alabama.”

“How am I supposed to get there in a day? It must be more than fifteen hundred miles away.”

“They’ll send a plane. To be honest, they already sent one. It’s waiting for you. There’s an airfield an hour’s drive from Los Gemelos. Four agents are on their way to safeguard the guy you rescued. One of them will drive you.”

I wondered if it was one of the airfields Dendoncker’s crew used to smuggle things through. “And afterward?”

“They’ll take you wherever you like. Within the United States.”

“San Francisco?”

“Sure. If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“OK. I’ll arrange it. Oh. One other thing. This might make you smile. A fax came for you at the hotel. At 12:34 a.m. From Dendoncker. He said the operation was on hold. You were to stay where you were. And not let the item out of your sight.”

The conversation had woken Fenton up. She was still in the armchair at Michael’s side so I went and sat on his bed and filled her in on developments.

“Well then,” Fenton said when I was finished. “Looks like you’ll make it to the ocean after all. A private jet. Sent by the government. Guess you’re taking hitchhiking to a whole new level.”

I said, “I hope Michael pulls through. And I’ll put in a good word for both of you.”

She shook her head. “Just for Michael. I knew what I was doing. I’ll take what’s coming to me.”

“Can you remember a number?”

“You’re keeping that phone?”

“No. The number’s for someone else. A woman. Her name’s Sonia. I met her when I was looking for you. She helped me. And she was close to Michael. You should call her. Let her know he’s alive.”

“She was close to Michael? How close?”

I shrugged. “Very, I guess. They met in the hospital in Germany. Seems like they’ve been together ever since.”

I could see Fenton doing the math. She hadn’t heard about this woman before. That was clear. And her own relationship with her brother had started to wither right around the time the two must have hooked up.

She said, “What’s she like, this Sonia? Will I like her?”

“I hope so. Could be your future sister-in-law we’re talking about.”