Blue Moon

THIRTY-EIGHT

Barton’s van was stored on a vacant lot behind a razor wire fence with a chained gate. He and Hogan got it out and Reacher and Abby followed them back to the house in the Lincoln. The van was a beat-up third-hand soccer mom vehicle, with the rear seats taken out and the windows covered over with black plastic. Reacher helped them load it. He had done many odd jobs since leaving the army, but he had never been a rock ’n’ roll roadie before. He carried Barton’s lethal Precision in a hard-shell case, plus a back-up instrument, plus an amplifier head the size of a rich man’s suitcase, and then finally the huge eight-speaker cabinet. He carried Hogan’s disassembled drum kit. He packed it all in.

Then he and Abby followed the van again, in the Lincoln, heading west towards Ukrainian territory. Noon was coming. The day was close to halfway over. Reacher drove. Abby counted the money they had taken from the guys in the trunk. Not much. A total of two hundred ten dollars. We’re guys who sit in cars. Clearly on a lower per diem than an old horse like Gezim Hoxha got. Their phones showed the same barrage of texts they had seen before, plus a whole string of new ones. All in Ukrainian. Abby recognized the shapes of some of the words, from her crash course the night before, with Vantresca.

‘They’re changing the situation again,’ she said.

‘To what?’ Reacher asked.

‘I can’t read it. I don’t know which letter it is. Presumably either up to C, or back down to A.’

‘Probably not back down,’ Reacher said. ‘Under the circumstances.’

‘I think they’re blaming the Russians. I think they’re calling Aaron Shevick a Russian.’

‘Where are the texts coming from?’

‘All the same number. Probably an automated distribution system.’

‘Probably in a computer in the nerve centre.’

‘Probably.’

‘Check the phone log.’

‘What am I looking for?’

‘The call that told them to go get Maria Shevick.’

Abby dabbed and scrolled her way to a list of recent calls.

‘The last one incoming was about an hour ago,’ she said. ‘Fifty-seven minutes, to be precise.’

Reacher timed his way through what had happened, but in reverse, like a stopwatch running backward. Following the van west, loading the van, getting the van, leaving the house, about four minutes and thirty seconds spent at the house, walking through the Shevicks’ yard, walking through the neighbour’s yard, getting out of the car. Out of the Jaguar, which was lined up parallel to the Lincoln, nose to nose and tail to tail, but about two hundred feet apart. Fifty-seven minutes. The two guys could have been getting out of their own car at the exact same moment.

He said, ‘Where did the call come from?’

She checked.

‘A weird cell number,’ she said. ‘Probably a disposable drugstore phone.’

‘Probably a senior figure. Maybe even Gregory himself. It was a major strategic decision. They want to know when the Russians are coming. They think I can tell them. They wanted Maria as leverage. They must think we’re related.’

‘What kind of leverage?’

‘The wrong kind. Call the number back.’

‘Really?’

‘There are things that need to be said.’

Abby put the phone on speaker and chose an option from the call log menu. Dial tone filled the car. Then a voice answered, with a foreign word that could have been hello, or yes, or what, or shoot, or whatever else people say when they answer the phone.

Reacher said, ‘Speak English.’

The voice said, ‘Who are you?’

‘You first,’ Reacher said. ‘Tell me your name.’

‘Are you Shevick?’

‘No,’ Reacher said. ‘You’re confused about that. You’re confused about a lot of things.’

‘Then who are you?’

‘You first,’ Reacher said again.

‘What do you want?’

‘I have a message for Gregory.’

‘Who are you?’

‘You first,’ Reacher said, for the third time.

‘My name is Danilo,’ the guy said.

Abby stiffened in her seat.

‘I am Gregory’s chief of staff,’ the guy said. ‘What is your message?’

‘It’s for Gregory,’ Reacher said. ‘Transfer the call.’

‘Not until I know who you are. Where are you from?’

‘I was born in Berlin,’ Reacher said.

‘You’re East German? Not Russian?’

‘My dad was a U.S. Marine. He was deployed to our embassy. I was born there. A month later I was somewhere else. Now I’m here. With a message for Gregory.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Jack Reacher.’

‘That’s the old man.’

‘I told you, you’re confused about that. I’m not as young as I was, but I’m not old yet. Overall I’m doing OK. Now transfer the call.’

The guy named Danilo went quiet for a long moment. The chief of staff. A big decision. Like an executive officer. You didn’t bug the CO with the small stuff, but you made damn sure you knew which small stuff was really big stuff in disguise. And then, the biggest bureaucratic rule of all: if in doubt, play it safe.

Danilo played it safe. There was a click, and a long moment of dead air, and another click, and then a new voice came on, with a foreign word that could have been hello, or yes, or what, or shoot, or whatever.

Reacher said, ‘Speak English.’

Gregory said, ‘What do you want?’

‘You got caller ID?’

‘Why?’

‘So you can tell who’s calling you.’

‘You told Danilo your name is Reacher.’

‘But whose phone am I on?’

No answer.

‘They’re dead,’ Reacher said. ‘They were useless. Like all your guys have been useless. They’re going down like flies. Pretty soon you’ll have no one left.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m coming for you, Gregory. You were going to hurt Maria Shevick. I don’t like people like you. I’m going to find you, and I’m going to make you cry like a little girl. Then I’m going to rip your leg off at the hip and beat you to death with it.’

Gregory paused a beat, and said, ‘You think you can do that?’

‘I’m pretty sure.’

‘Not if I see you first.’

‘You won’t,’ Reacher said. ‘You haven’t yet. You never will. You can’t find me. You’re not good enough. You’re an amateur, Gregory. I’m a professional. You won’t see me coming. You could go all the way to Situation Z and it wouldn’t help you. My advice right now is say your goodbyes and make your will.’

He clicked off and threw the phone out the window.

Abby said, ‘Danilo.’

A small voice. Hesitant.

Reacher said, ‘What about him?’

‘He was the guy,’ she said.

‘What guy?’

‘Who did the thing to me.’