The Sentinel

EIGHTEEN

Reacher, Rutherford and Sands left the guy with his clipboards and trudged back up the slope. They climbed into the minivan. Sands fired up the engine. She cranked the air all the way up and set off slowly, following the curve around and down and off the dirt and through the exit gate and back out on to the blacktop. No one spoke. Reacher sprawled out in the back. He was thinking about the servers. About what might have happened to them. He had two plausible theories. Option A was that they’d been trashed. He pictured the guy, Thomassino, going to collect them. Thomassino worked alone. Which was probably fine when he was picking up small things like cell phones. But there were eight servers. They were housed in a cabinet. It was six feet tall. Heavy. Hard to manoeuvre. Stuck on some kind of irregularity in the floor. And its door was broken. Glass shards would be sticking out. Making it dangerous to handle, as well as difficult. The log showed that Thomassino arrived at the recycling centre after 5:00 p.m. on each occasion. Probably his last job on both days. Would he have bothered to wrestle with the cabinet on his own, so close to the end of his shift? Or would he have slipped the guys on the regular garbage duty a couple of crisp twenties to take care of the problem for him?

Option B assumed Thomassino would have made the effort to remove the cabinet. Or at least its contents. It was only Rutherford’s experimental software that had failed. The servers themselves were in working order. Maybe Thomassino kept an eye out for such things. Maybe he had a regular buyer on standby. Reacher had no idea what second-hand computer equipment was worth. Maybe a lot. Maybe not very much. The reward may not have been high. But the risk was virtually non-existent. How would the theft ever come to light, under normal circumstances? The town guys would be happy because their unwanted items had been removed. The recycling guys would never know to expect them, because nothing was itemized.

So, laziness or greed? Even money in Reacher’s experience. Impossible to pick between them without knowing more about Thomassino. And most likely irrelevant, anyway. The servers could have been crushed or incinerated or sent to a landfill. They could have been wiped and restored to factory settings and sold. Either way the data would be lost. The identity of the Russian spy would remain a secret. And Rutherford would still be in danger. Reacher would have to decide what to do about that. Staying in town to babysit him indefinitely was out of the question. So was leaving him alone and vulnerable. The best option would be to persuade him to get out of town, but Reacher had tried that. He saw little hope of getting Rutherford to change his mind. Not without divulging dangerous information. Maybe Sands could help, he thought. She was ex-Bureau. He could talk to her. Hint at the source of the problem. Obliquely enough to avoid compromising Fisher. Directly enough to stress the urgency. That might work. Unless Thomassino rendered the problem moot. Maybe he would serve up a miracle. Maybe the servers were sitting safely at his house, untouched, contents intact.

Hope for the best.

Given a free hand Reacher would have proceeded directly to the depot. The site log showed Thomassino working past 5:00 p.m. on the days he delivered electronics to the recycling facility but there was no guarantee those were his regular hours. The safest course would be to locate the truck drivers’ personal vehicles as quickly as possible and wait. An hour. Two hours. Five. As long as necessary. It was all the same to Reacher. He could wait all day. But he could see it wasn’t the same for Sands and Rutherford. They were cranky after failing to find their equipment. Probably worried about their prospects of ever recovering it. And definitely uncomfortable after rooting around inside the hot metal cabin. He was going to have to cut them some slack. Unless he went to find Thomassino on his own. Which was a possibility. The risk should be minimal. Fisher’s cell was stood down to surveillance only.

Reacher decided they should stick together. There was another factor to take into account. Suppose their luck changed and Thomassino came clean immediately. Admitted to stealing all the serviceable equipment he came across and took Reacher to his stash. Reacher didn’t know what a server looked like. He needed Rutherford with him to handle the identification. And Sands had proved herself more than valuable, finding the location of the recycling plant and then duping the guy with the shotgun. A little downtime wouldn’t kill them, Reacher figured. As long as they were at the depot by 4:00 p.m.

Sands leaned across and hit some buttons on the minivan’s GPS screen which caused it to display the locations of the five nearest gas stations. The closest was the truck stop Reacher had visited twice before. They continued in silence, and when they arrived Sands pulled up at the pump Reacher had used the previous night. Rutherford stayed in the car. Sands climbed out and pumped the gas. She used her credit card to avoid having to go inside the main building. Reacher went in anyway. He was hungry. He rounded up the ingredients for four hot dogs, assembled them, loaded them with extra cheese and onions, then grabbed a bunch of newspapers. A disposable razor. A can of shaving cream. And a pack of bottled water, figuring the others could probably use some hydration.

Sands dropped Reacher and Rutherford two blocks from the apartment building and went to find a random spot to leave the minivan. She got back to Mitch’s place ten minutes after the others, fired up the coffee machine, then went to take a shower. Rutherford stayed in the kitchen, hunched over his computer. Reacher stretched out on the couch and made a start on the newspapers. Neither of them moved for half an hour. Neither said a word. Then Sands came out of the bathroom and Rutherford went in. She poured two mugs of coffee, carried them to the living room, and took a seat opposite Reacher.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Sands said. ‘You were in the army. You were an MP. You investigated things. And people. Yes?’

‘That was the general idea,’ Reacher said.

‘You must have had resources. Records. Databases. Other soldiers who could make calls. Verify information. Find out if people had been telling the truth?’

‘All of the above.’

‘Do you miss that, now that you’re on your own?’

‘Life in the army was pretty good, overall,’ Reacher said. ‘I worked with some outstanding people. Aside from the time I wasted dealing with bullshit from senior officers. Other than that I left with very few regrets.’

‘No,’ Sands said. ‘I mean the support you had. The ability to get facts checked. If you found yourself in a particular situation, for example, and you were given a plausible account for it. Then you realized there might be an alternative explanation. A much less favourable one, from a certain individual’s point of view. What would you do now?’

‘I’d listen to my gut. If I had any doubt, I’d walk away.’

‘Even if that meant leaving a friend in danger?’

‘OK, Sarah. Enough beating around the bush. What’s your real question?’

‘Well, when I was in the shower just now I started thinking, what if I wanted to get something from Rusty? Something critically important. And I wanted to do it without anyone realizing. I wouldn’t steal it, because he’d notice and report it missing. I wouldn’t try to buy it from him or trick him into handing it over, because he might see through me. He might play along and then report the attempt. Or run. I could kidnap him, of course, and force him to give it to me. But then I’d have to kill him to preserve the secret. So maybe I’d do this instead. I’d stage a kidnapping attempt. Make it look very professional. Very convincing. The kind of thing that would certainly have succeeded if someone hadn’t intervened. Someone with all the right skills and experience who just happened to be walking by. Someone who would instantly gain Rusty’s trust, and then offer to stick around and help him.’

‘That someone being me?’ Reacher said.

‘I’m not trying to be an asshole here. But you have to admit it’s a possibility.’

‘It’s absolutely a possibility. It wouldn’t be the first time something like it happened.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it’s not just the kidnap attempt that could be fishy. Every other time you’ve had contact with whoever we’re up against you’ve been on your own. A series of coincidences? Or clandestine meetings?’

Reacher smiled and looked away.

‘What?’ Sands said. ‘Is this funny to you?’

‘No. It’s just this town. There must be something in the water. First I get mistaken for an insurance guy. And now you think, what? Follow it through. If I’m working with these kidnappers, I must be some kind of mercenary. Someone good, because this operation wasn’t thrown together on a budget. Therefore someone expensive. So I must be secretly rich. What’s your theory? This whole image is a sham? I really live in some Manhattan mansion with closets full of silk suits and a garage crammed with Ferraris?’

‘Is that any less likely than a retired major being homeless?’

‘I’m not homeless.’

‘So that’s one lie you told.’

‘When?’

‘You told Rusty you don’t own a house. You just drift around. A night here. Two nights there. No fixed abode.’

‘That’s true.’

‘So you are homeless.’

‘No. My situation is not the same at all. It’s like the difference between being alone and being lonely. Two separate, distinct things.’

‘OK, then. Back up. Say you have earned a fortune as a mercenary. It doesn’t follow that you spent the money on a house and clothes and cars. That’s faulty reasoning. You might not have spent the money at all. You could have stashed it all in a bank in the Cayman Islands. Or hidden it inside a hollow tree. Or given it to a cat shelter.’

‘True. I could have. But I didn’t.’

‘Can you back that up?’

‘How? I can’t prove a negative. No one can.’

Sands slumped back on the couch.

‘Try this,’ Reacher said. ‘Flip it around. I have the means and the opportunity, sure. But what’s my motive?’

‘Money,’ Sands said.

‘I’m not interested in money. I have enough already. Why would I want more?’

‘Have you met the human race?’

‘You’re on the wrong track, Sarah. The point is, I do have a motive. To keep Rusty out of danger. You’re equally capable of that. So why don’t you take over? If you move him somewhere safe, today, I’ll walk away. I’ll never come near him again.’

‘Or with us out of the way you’ll go straight to the depot and lean on Thomassino.’

‘Look, if you really don’t trust me, talk to your friends at the Bureau. Have them run my background.’

‘I already did. Five minutes after I met you. They didn’t find anything. But what does that mean? You’re telling the truth? Or you’re good at covering your tracks?’

‘I guess it boils down to this,’ Reacher said. ‘I could be helping Rusty. I could be setting him up. Only time will tell. So right now it just depends on what you believe. And you obviously don’t believe I’m in league with the devil.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘You’re a smart woman. That’s clear. So if you really thought I was a hired killer you wouldn’t say so to my face. You’d drug my coffee and slip away while you had the chance. Or shoot me before I could hurt your friend.’

‘That’s an interesting theory. Which begs another question. Who just made your coffee?’

Reacher picked up his mug. It was a decent size. Maybe eight fluid ounces. It had started out full. Now only a quarter was left. Was six ounces enough for an effective dose of tranquillizer? For a man his size? He didn’t feel dizzy. Or nauseous. Or tired. He sniffed the remaining liquid. There was no unusual odour. It had tasted fine. But then he wasn’t the world’s greatest connoisseur when it came to flavour. He was mainly a fan of strength.

‘Here,’ Sands said. ‘Pass it to me.’

Reacher put the mug back on the table and slid it across. Sands picked it up and took a mouthful.

‘I was joking about the coffee,’ she said, then revealed why her robe was gaping a little that day. There was something in the pocket. Something heavy. Sands reached inside and pulled it out. It was a gun. A Colt Government Model .380. Small. Light. Reliable. She flicked the safety down with her right thumb. ‘I’m not joking about this. And remember, you may be bigger. But I’m faster. So look me in the eye and tell me you’re on the level.’

‘I’m on the level.’

Sands rested the Colt on her lap. The tips of her fingers were touching its grip.

‘So,’ Reacher said after a long minute had ticked past. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘What choice do I have? Do what you said. Go with my gut.’ Sands flicked the safety up and slipped the gun back into her pocket. ‘And pray you don’t make me regret it.’