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Holly turned her face back and stared up at the hot metal roof. She was asking herself: just who the hell is this guy?
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This time, McGrath did not make the tech chief come down to the third floor. He led the charge himself up to his lab on the sixth, with the video cassette in his hand. He burst in through the door and cleared a space on the nearest table. Laid the cassette in the space like it was made of solid gold. The guy hurried over and looked at it.
"I need photographs made," McGrath told him.
The guy picked up the cassette and took it across to a bank of video machines in the corner. Flicked a couple of switches. Three screens lit up with white snow.
"You tell absolutely nobody what you're seeing, OK?" McGrath said.
"OK," the guy said. "What am I looking for?"
"The last five frames," McGrath said. "That should just about cover it."
The tech chief didn't use a remote. He stabbed at buttons on the machine's own control panel. The tape rolled backwards and the story of Holly Johnson's kidnap unfolded in reverse.
"Christ," he said.
He stopped on the frame showing Holly turning away from the counter. Then he inched the tape forward. He jumped Holly to the door, then face to face with the tall guy, then into the muzzles of the guns, then to the car. He rolled back and did it for a second time. Then a third.
"Christ," he said again.
"Don't wear the damn tape out," McGrath said. "I want big photographs of those five frames. Lots of copies."
The tech chief nodded slowly.
"I can give you laser prints right now," he said.
He punched a couple of buttons and flicked a couple of switches. Then he ducked away and booted up a computer on a desk across the room. The monitor came up with Holly leaving the dry-cleaner's counter. He clicked on a couple of menus.
"OK," he said. "I'm copying it to the hard disk. As a graphics file."
He darted back to the video bank and nudged the tape forward one frame. Came back to the desk and the computer captured the image of Holly making to push open the exit door. He repeated the process three more times. Then he printed all five graphics files on the fastest laser he had. McGrath stood and caught each sheet as it flopped into the output bin.
"Not bad," he said. "I like paper better than video. Like it really exists."
The tech chief gave him a look and peered over his shoulder.
"Definition's OK," he said.
"I want blow-ups," McGrath told him.
"No problem now it's in the computer," the tech said. "That's why the computer is better than paper."
He sat down and opened the fourth file. The picture of Holly and the three kidnapers in a tight knot on the sidewalk scrolled onto the screen. He clicked the mouse and pulled a tight square round the heads. Clicked again. The monitor redrew into a large blow-up. The tall guy was staring straight out of the screen. The two new guys were caught at an angle, staring at Holly.
The tech hit the print button and then he opened the fifth file. He zoomed in with the mouse and put a tight rectangle round the driver, inside the car. He printed that out, too. McGrath picked up the new sheets of paper.
"Good," he said. "Good as we're going to get, anyway. Shame your damn computer can't make them all look right at the camera."
"It can," the tech chief said.
"It can?" McGrath said. "How?"
"In a manner of speaking," the guy said. He touched the blow-up of Holly's face with his finger. "Suppose we wanted a face-front picture of her, right? We'd ask her to move around right in front of the camera and look right up at it. But suppose for some reason she can't move at all. What would we do? We could move the camera, right? Suppose you climbed up on the counter and unbolted the camera off the wall and moved it down and around a certain distance until it was right in front of her. Then you'd be seeing a face-front picture, correct?"
"OK," McGrath said.
"So what we do is we calculate," the tech said. "We calculate that if we did hypothetically move that camera right in front of her, we'd have to move it what? Say six feet downward, say ten feet to the left, and turn it through about forty degrees, and then it would be plumb face-on to her. So we get those numbers and we enter them into the program and the computer will do a kind of backward simulation, and draw us a picture, just the same as if we'd really moved the actual camera right around in front of her."
"You can do that?" McGrath said. "Does it work?"
"Within its limitations," the tech chief said. He touched the image of the nearer gunman. "This guy, for instance, he's pretty much side on. The computer will give us a full-face picture, no problem at all, but it's going to be just guessing what the other side of his face looks like, right? It's programmed to assume the other side looks pretty much like the side it can see, with a little bit of asymmetry built in. But if the guy's got one ear missing or something, or a big scar, it can't tell us that."
"OK," McGrath said. "So what do you need?"
The tech chief picked up the wide shot of the group. Pointed here and there on it with a stubby forefinger.
"Measurements," he said. "Make them as exact as possible. I need to know the camera position relative to the doorway and the sidewalk level. I need to know the focal length of the camera lens. I need Holly's file photograph for calibration. We know exactly what she looks like, right? I can use her for a test run. I'll get it set up so she comes out right, then the other guys will come out right as well, assuming they've all got two ears and so on, like I said. And bring me a square of tile off the store's floor and one of those smocks the counter woman was wearing."
"What for?" McGrath said.
"So I can use them to decode the grays in the video," the tech said. "Then I can give you your mug shots in color."
"What do you think?" he asked McGrath.
McGrath looked hard at the full-face picture of Holly. Then he passed it around. Milosevic got it last and stared at it hardest. Covered some parts with his hand and frowned.
"Makes her look too thin," he said. "I think the bottom right quarter is wrong. Not enough width there, somehow."
"I agree," McGrath said. "Makes her jaw look weird."
The tech chief exited to a menu screen and adjusted a couple of numbers. Ran the test again. The laser printer whirred. The sheet of stiff paper came out.
"That's better," McGrath said. "Just about on the nose."
"Color OK?" the tech asked.
"Should be a darker peach," Milosevic said. "On her dress. I know that dress. Some kind of an Italian thing."
The tech exited to a color palette.
"Show me," he said.
Milosevic pointed to a particular shade.
"More like that," he said.
They ran the test again. The hard disk chattered and the laser printer whirred.
"That's better," Milosevic said. "Dress is right. Hair color is better as well."
"OK," the tech said. He saved all the parameters to disk. "Let's go to work here."
The FBI never uses latest-generation equipment. The feeling is better to use stuff that has been proven in the field. So the tech chiefs computer was actually a little slower than the computers in the rich kids' bedrooms up and down the North Shore. But not much slower. It gave McGrath five prints within forty minutes. Four mug shots of the four kidnapers, and a close-up side view of the front half of their car. All in glowing color, all with the grain enhanced and smoothed away. McGrath thought they were the best damn pictures he had ever seen.
"Thanks, chief," he said. "These are brilliant. Best work anybody has done around here for a long time. But don't say a word. Big secret, right?"
He clapped the tech on the shoulder and left him feeling like the most important guy in the whole building.
"Stolen?" Milosevic said.
McGrath nodded.
"Almost certainly," he said. "You do the checking, OK?"
Fluctuations in the value of the yen had put the list price of a new Lexus four-door somewhere up there with Milosevic's annual salary, so he knew which jurisdictions were worth checking with and which weren't. He didn't bother with anywhere south of the Loop. He put in calls to the Chicago cops, and then all the departments on the North Shore right up to Lake Forest.
He got a hit just before noon. Not exactly what he was looking for. Not a stolen Lexus. But a missing Lexus. The police department in Wilmette came back to him and said a dentist up there had driven his brand-new Lexus to work, before seven on Monday morning, and parked it in the lot behind his professional building. A chiropractor from the next office suite had seen him turn into the lot. But the dentist had never made it into the building. His nurse had called his home and his wife had called the Wilmette PD. The cops had taken the report and sat on it. It wasn't the first case of a husband disappearing they'd ever heard of. They told Milosevic the guy's name was Rubin and the car was the new shade of black, mica flecks in the paint to make it sparkle, and it had vanity plates reading: ORTHO 1.
Milosevic put the phone down on that call and it rang again straightaway with a report from the Chicago Fire Department. A unit had attended an automobile fire which was putting up a cloud of oily smoke into the land-side flightpath into Meigs Field Airport. The fire truck had arrived in an abandoned industrial lot just before one o'clock Monday and found a black Lexus burning fiercely. They had figured it was burned to the metal anyway, not much more smoke to come, so they had saved their foam and just left it to burn out. Milosevic copied the location and hung up. Ducked into McGrath's office for instructions.
"Check it out," McGrath told him.
Milosevic nodded. He was always happy with road work. It gave him the chance to drive his own brand-new Ford Explorer, which he liked to use in preference to one of the Bureau's clunky sedans. And the Bureau liked to let him do exactly that, because he never bothered to claim for his personal gas. So he drove the big shiny four-wheel-drive five miles south and found the wreck of the Lexus, no trouble at all. It was parked at an angle on a lumpy concrete area behind an abandoned industrial building. The tires had burned away and it was settled on the rims. The plates were still readable: ORTHO 1. He poked through the drifts of ash inside, still slightly warm, and then he pulled the shaft of the burned key from the ignition and popped the trunk. Then he staggered four steps away and threw up on the concrete. He retched and spat and sweated. He pulled his cellular phone from his pocket and fired it up. Got straight through to McGrath in the Federal Building.
"I found the dentist," he said.
"Where?" McGrath asked.
"In the damn trunk," Milosevic said. "Slow-roasted. Looks like he was alive when the fire started."
"Christ," McGrath said. "Is it connected?"
"No doubt about that," he said.
"You sure?" McGrath asked him.
"No doubt about it," Milosevic said again. "I found other stuff. Burned, but it's all pretty clear. There's a .38 right in the middle of what looks like a metal hinge, could be from a woman's pocketbook, right? Coins, and a lipstick tube, and the metal parts from a mobile phone and a pager. And there are nine wire hangers on the floor. Like you get from a dry-cleaner's?"
"Christ," McGrath said again. "Conclusions?"
"They stole the Lexus up in Wilmette," Milosevic said. "Maybe the dentist guy disturbed them in the act. So he went for them and they overpowered him and put him in the trunk. Burned him along with the rest of the evidence."
"Shit," McGrath said. "But where's Holly? Conclusions on that?"
"They took her to Meigs Field," Milosevic said. "It's about a half-mile away. They put her in a private plane and dumped the car right here. That's what they did, Mack. They flew her out somewhere. Four guys, capable of burning another guy up while he was still alive, they've got her alone somewhere, could be a million miles away from here by now."
"I need photographs made," McGrath told him.
The guy picked up the cassette and took it across to a bank of video machines in the corner. Flicked a couple of switches. Three screens lit up with white snow.
"You tell absolutely nobody what you're seeing, OK?" McGrath said.
"OK," the guy said. "What am I looking for?"
"The last five frames," McGrath said. "That should just about cover it."
The tech chief didn't use a remote. He stabbed at buttons on the machine's own control panel. The tape rolled backwards and the story of Holly Johnson's kidnap unfolded in reverse.
"Christ," he said.
He stopped on the frame showing Holly turning away from the counter. Then he inched the tape forward. He jumped Holly to the door, then face to face with the tall guy, then into the muzzles of the guns, then to the car. He rolled back and did it for a second time. Then a third.
"Christ," he said again.
"Don't wear the damn tape out," McGrath said. "I want big photographs of those five frames. Lots of copies."
The tech chief nodded slowly.
"I can give you laser prints right now," he said.
He punched a couple of buttons and flicked a couple of switches. Then he ducked away and booted up a computer on a desk across the room. The monitor came up with Holly leaving the dry-cleaner's counter. He clicked on a couple of menus.
"OK," he said. "I'm copying it to the hard disk. As a graphics file."
He darted back to the video bank and nudged the tape forward one frame. Came back to the desk and the computer captured the image of Holly making to push open the exit door. He repeated the process three more times. Then he printed all five graphics files on the fastest laser he had. McGrath stood and caught each sheet as it flopped into the output bin.
"Not bad," he said. "I like paper better than video. Like it really exists."
The tech chief gave him a look and peered over his shoulder.
"Definition's OK," he said.
"I want blow-ups," McGrath told him.
"No problem now it's in the computer," the tech said. "That's why the computer is better than paper."
He sat down and opened the fourth file. The picture of Holly and the three kidnapers in a tight knot on the sidewalk scrolled onto the screen. He clicked the mouse and pulled a tight square round the heads. Clicked again. The monitor redrew into a large blow-up. The tall guy was staring straight out of the screen. The two new guys were caught at an angle, staring at Holly.
The tech hit the print button and then he opened the fifth file. He zoomed in with the mouse and put a tight rectangle round the driver, inside the car. He printed that out, too. McGrath picked up the new sheets of paper.
"Good," he said. "Good as we're going to get, anyway. Shame your damn computer can't make them all look right at the camera."
"It can," the tech chief said.
"It can?" McGrath said. "How?"
"In a manner of speaking," the guy said. He touched the blow-up of Holly's face with his finger. "Suppose we wanted a face-front picture of her, right? We'd ask her to move around right in front of the camera and look right up at it. But suppose for some reason she can't move at all. What would we do? We could move the camera, right? Suppose you climbed up on the counter and unbolted the camera off the wall and moved it down and around a certain distance until it was right in front of her. Then you'd be seeing a face-front picture, correct?"
"OK," McGrath said.
"So what we do is we calculate," the tech said. "We calculate that if we did hypothetically move that camera right in front of her, we'd have to move it what? Say six feet downward, say ten feet to the left, and turn it through about forty degrees, and then it would be plumb face-on to her. So we get those numbers and we enter them into the program and the computer will do a kind of backward simulation, and draw us a picture, just the same as if we'd really moved the actual camera right around in front of her."
"You can do that?" McGrath said. "Does it work?"
"Within its limitations," the tech chief said. He touched the image of the nearer gunman. "This guy, for instance, he's pretty much side on. The computer will give us a full-face picture, no problem at all, but it's going to be just guessing what the other side of his face looks like, right? It's programmed to assume the other side looks pretty much like the side it can see, with a little bit of asymmetry built in. But if the guy's got one ear missing or something, or a big scar, it can't tell us that."
"OK," McGrath said. "So what do you need?"
The tech chief picked up the wide shot of the group. Pointed here and there on it with a stubby forefinger.
"Measurements," he said. "Make them as exact as possible. I need to know the camera position relative to the doorway and the sidewalk level. I need to know the focal length of the camera lens. I need Holly's file photograph for calibration. We know exactly what she looks like, right? I can use her for a test run. I'll get it set up so she comes out right, then the other guys will come out right as well, assuming they've all got two ears and so on, like I said. And bring me a square of tile off the store's floor and one of those smocks the counter woman was wearing."
"What for?" McGrath said.
"So I can use them to decode the grays in the video," the tech said. "Then I can give you your mug shots in color."
* * *
The commander selected six women from that morning's punishment detail. He used the ones with the most demerits, because the task was going to be hard and unpleasant. He stood them at attention and drew his huge bulk up to its full height in front of them. He waited to see which of them would be the first to glance away from his face. When he was satisfied none of them dared to, he explained their duties. The blood had sprayed all over the room, hurled around by the savage centrifugal force of the blade. Chips of bone had spattered everywhere. He told them to heat water in the cook house and carry it over in buckets. He told them to draw scrubbing brushes and rags and disinfectant from the stores. He told them they had two hours to get the room looking pristine again. Any longer than that, they would earn more demerits.* * *
It took two hours to get the data. Milosevic and Brogan went out to the dry-cleaning establishment. They closed the place down and swarmed all over it like surveyors. They drew a plan with measurements accurate to the nearest quarter-inch. They took the camera off the wall and brought it back with them. They tore up the floor and took the tiles. They took two smocks from the woman and two posters off the wall, because they thought they might help with the colorizing process. Back on the sixth floor of the Federal Building, the tech chief took another two hours to input the data. Then he ran the test, using Holly Johnson to calibrate the program."What do you think?" he asked McGrath.
McGrath looked hard at the full-face picture of Holly. Then he passed it around. Milosevic got it last and stared at it hardest. Covered some parts with his hand and frowned.
"Makes her look too thin," he said. "I think the bottom right quarter is wrong. Not enough width there, somehow."
"I agree," McGrath said. "Makes her jaw look weird."
The tech chief exited to a menu screen and adjusted a couple of numbers. Ran the test again. The laser printer whirred. The sheet of stiff paper came out.
"That's better," McGrath said. "Just about on the nose."
"Color OK?" the tech asked.
"Should be a darker peach," Milosevic said. "On her dress. I know that dress. Some kind of an Italian thing."
The tech exited to a color palette.
"Show me," he said.
Milosevic pointed to a particular shade.
"More like that," he said.
They ran the test again. The hard disk chattered and the laser printer whirred.
"That's better," Milosevic said. "Dress is right. Hair color is better as well."
"OK," the tech said. He saved all the parameters to disk. "Let's go to work here."
The FBI never uses latest-generation equipment. The feeling is better to use stuff that has been proven in the field. So the tech chiefs computer was actually a little slower than the computers in the rich kids' bedrooms up and down the North Shore. But not much slower. It gave McGrath five prints within forty minutes. Four mug shots of the four kidnapers, and a close-up side view of the front half of their car. All in glowing color, all with the grain enhanced and smoothed away. McGrath thought they were the best damn pictures he had ever seen.
"Thanks, chief," he said. "These are brilliant. Best work anybody has done around here for a long time. But don't say a word. Big secret, right?"
He clapped the tech on the shoulder and left him feeling like the most important guy in the whole building.
* * *
The six women worked hard and finished just before their two hours were up. The tiny cracks between the boards were their biggest problem. The cracks were tight, but not tight enough to stop the blood seeping in. But they were too tight to get a brush down in there. They had to sluice them out with water and rag them dry. The boards were turning a wet brown color. The women were praying they wouldn't warp as they dried. Two of them were throwing up. It was adding to their workload. But they finished in time for the commander's inspection. They stood rigidly to attention on the damp floor and waited. He checked everywhere, with the wet boards creaking under his bulk. But he was satisfied with their work and gave them another two hours to clean the smears off the corridor and the staircase, where the body had been dragged away.* * *
The car was easy. It was quickly identified as a Lexus. Four-door. Late model. The pattern of the alloy wheel dated it exactly. Color was either black or dark gray. Impossible to be certain. The computer process was good, but not good enough to be definitive about dark automotive paint standing in bright sunshine."Stolen?" Milosevic said.
McGrath nodded.
"Almost certainly," he said. "You do the checking, OK?"
Fluctuations in the value of the yen had put the list price of a new Lexus four-door somewhere up there with Milosevic's annual salary, so he knew which jurisdictions were worth checking with and which weren't. He didn't bother with anywhere south of the Loop. He put in calls to the Chicago cops, and then all the departments on the North Shore right up to Lake Forest.
He got a hit just before noon. Not exactly what he was looking for. Not a stolen Lexus. But a missing Lexus. The police department in Wilmette came back to him and said a dentist up there had driven his brand-new Lexus to work, before seven on Monday morning, and parked it in the lot behind his professional building. A chiropractor from the next office suite had seen him turn into the lot. But the dentist had never made it into the building. His nurse had called his home and his wife had called the Wilmette PD. The cops had taken the report and sat on it. It wasn't the first case of a husband disappearing they'd ever heard of. They told Milosevic the guy's name was Rubin and the car was the new shade of black, mica flecks in the paint to make it sparkle, and it had vanity plates reading: ORTHO 1.
Milosevic put the phone down on that call and it rang again straightaway with a report from the Chicago Fire Department. A unit had attended an automobile fire which was putting up a cloud of oily smoke into the land-side flightpath into Meigs Field Airport. The fire truck had arrived in an abandoned industrial lot just before one o'clock Monday and found a black Lexus burning fiercely. They had figured it was burned to the metal anyway, not much more smoke to come, so they had saved their foam and just left it to burn out. Milosevic copied the location and hung up. Ducked into McGrath's office for instructions.
"Check it out," McGrath told him.
Milosevic nodded. He was always happy with road work. It gave him the chance to drive his own brand-new Ford Explorer, which he liked to use in preference to one of the Bureau's clunky sedans. And the Bureau liked to let him do exactly that, because he never bothered to claim for his personal gas. So he drove the big shiny four-wheel-drive five miles south and found the wreck of the Lexus, no trouble at all. It was parked at an angle on a lumpy concrete area behind an abandoned industrial building. The tires had burned away and it was settled on the rims. The plates were still readable: ORTHO 1. He poked through the drifts of ash inside, still slightly warm, and then he pulled the shaft of the burned key from the ignition and popped the trunk. Then he staggered four steps away and threw up on the concrete. He retched and spat and sweated. He pulled his cellular phone from his pocket and fired it up. Got straight through to McGrath in the Federal Building.
"I found the dentist," he said.
"Where?" McGrath asked.
"In the damn trunk," Milosevic said. "Slow-roasted. Looks like he was alive when the fire started."
"Christ," McGrath said. "Is it connected?"
"No doubt about that," he said.
"You sure?" McGrath asked him.
"No doubt about it," Milosevic said again. "I found other stuff. Burned, but it's all pretty clear. There's a .38 right in the middle of what looks like a metal hinge, could be from a woman's pocketbook, right? Coins, and a lipstick tube, and the metal parts from a mobile phone and a pager. And there are nine wire hangers on the floor. Like you get from a dry-cleaner's?"
"Christ," McGrath said again. "Conclusions?"
"They stole the Lexus up in Wilmette," Milosevic said. "Maybe the dentist guy disturbed them in the act. So he went for them and they overpowered him and put him in the trunk. Burned him along with the rest of the evidence."
"Shit," McGrath said. "But where's Holly? Conclusions on that?"
"They took her to Meigs Field," Milosevic said. "It's about a half-mile away. They put her in a private plane and dumped the car right here. That's what they did, Mack. They flew her out somewhere. Four guys, capable of burning another guy up while he was still alive, they've got her alone somewhere, could be a million miles away from here by now."
15
The white truck droned on steadily, another hour, maybe sixty more miles. The clock inside Reacher's head ticked around from eleven to twelve noon. The first faint stirrings of worry were building inside him. They had been gone a day. Nearly a full twenty-four hours. Out of the first phase, into the middle phase. No progress. And he was uncomfortable. The air inside the vehicle was about as hot as air could get. They were still lying flat on their backs on the hot mattress, heads together. The horsehair padding was overheating them. Holly's dark hair was damp and spread out. On her left, it was curled against Reacher's bare shoulder.
"Is it because I'm a woman?" she asked. Tense. "Or because I'm younger than you? Or both?"
"Is what because?" he asked back. Wary.
"You think you've got to take care of me," she said. "You're worrying about me, because I'm young and a woman, right? You think I need some older man's help."
Reacher stirred. He didn't really want to move. He wasn't comfortable, but he guessed he was happy enough where he was. In particular, he was happy with the feel of Holly's hair against his shoulder. His life was like that. Whatever happened there were always some little compensations available.
"Well?" she asked.
"It's not a gender thing, Holly," he said. "Or an age thing. But you do need help, right?"
"And I'm a younger woman and you're an older man," she said. "Therefore obviously you're the one qualified to give it. Couldn't be any other way around, right?"
Reacher shook his head, lying down.
"It's not a gender thing," he said again. "Or an age thing. I'm qualified because I'm qualified, is all. I'm just trying to help you out."
"You're taking stupid risks," she said. "Pushing them and antagonizing them is not the way to do this, for God's sake. You'll get us both killed."
"Bullshit," Reacher said. "They need to see us as people, not cargo."
"Says who?" Holly snapped. "Who suddenly made you the big expert?"
He shrugged at her.
"Let me ask you a question," he said. "If the boot was on the other foot, would you have left me alone in that barn?"
She thought about it.
"Of course I would have," she said.
He smiled. She was probably telling the truth. He liked her for it.
"OK," he said. "Next time you tell me, I'm gone. No argument."
She was quiet for a long moment.
"Good," she said. "You really want to help me out, you do exactly that."
He shrugged. Moved a half-inch closer to her.
"Risky for you," he said. "I get away, they might figure on just wasting you and disappearing."
"I'll take the risk," she said. "That's what I'm paid for."
"So who are they?" he asked her. "And what do they want?"
"No idea," she said.
She said it too quickly. He knew she knew.
"They want you, right?" he said. "Either because they want you personally, or because they want any old FBI agent and you were right there on the spot. How many FBI agents are there?"
"Bureau has twenty-five thousand employees," she said. "Of which ten thousand are agents."
"OK," he said. "So they want you in particular. One out of ten thousand is too big a coincidence. This is not random."
She looked away. He glanced at her.
"Why, Holly?" he asked.
She shrugged and shook her head.
"I don't know," she said.
Too quickly. He glanced at her again. She sounded sure, but there was some big defensive edge there in her reply.
"I don't know," she said again. "All I can figure is maybe they mistook me for somebody else from the office."
Reacher laughed and turned his head toward her. His face touched her hair.
"You're joking, Holly Johnson," he said. "You're not the type of woman gets confused with somebody else. And they watched you three weeks. Long enough to get familiar."
She smiled away from him, up at the metal roof, ironically.
"Once seen, never forgotten, right?" she said. "I wish."
"You in any doubt about that?" Reacher said. "You're the best-looking person I saw this week."
"Thanks, Reacher," she said. "It's Tuesday. You first saw me Monday. Big compliment, right?"
"But you get my drift," he said.
She sat up, straight from the waist like a gymnast, and used both hands to flip her leg sideways. Propped herself on one elbow on the mattress. Hooked her hair behind her ear and looked down at him.
"I don't get anything about you," she said.
He looked back up at her. Shrugged.
"You got questions, you ask them," he said. "I'm all in favor of freedom of information."
"OK," she said. "Here's the first question: who the hell are you?"
He shrugged again and smiled.
"Jack Reacher," he said. "No middle name, thirty-seven years and eight months old, unmarried, club doorman in Chicago."
"Bullshit," she said.
"Bullshit?" he repeated. "Which part? My name, my age, my marital status or my occupation?"
"Your occupation," she said. "You're not a club doorman."
"I'm not?" he said. "So what am I?"
"You're a soldier," she said. "You're in the army."
"I am?" he said.
"It's pretty obvious," she said. "My dad is army. I've lived on bases all my life. Everybody I ever saw was in the army, right up until I was eighteen years old. I know what soldiers look like. I know how they act. I was pretty sure you were one. Then you took your shirt off, and I knew for definite."
Reacher grinned.
"Why?" he said. "Is that a really uncouth, soldierly kind of a thing to do?"
Holly grinned back at him. Shook her head. Her hair came loose. She swept it back behind her ear, one finger bent like a small pale hook.
"That scar on your stomach," she said. Those awful stitches. That's a MASH job for sure. Some field hospital somewhere, took them about a minute and a half. Any civilian surgeon did stitches like that, he'd get sued for malpractice so fast he'd get dizzy."
Reacher ran his finger over the lumpy skin. The stitches looked like a plan of the ties at a busy railroad yard.
"The guy was busy," he said. "I thought he did pretty well, considering the circumstances. It was in Beirut. I was a long way down the priority list. I was only bleeding to death slowly."
"So I'm right?" Holly said. "You're a soldier?"
Reacher smiled up at her again and shook his head.
"I'm a doorman," he said. "Like I told you. Blues joint on the South Side. You should try it. Much better than the tourist places."
She glanced between his huge scar and his face. Clamped her lips and slowly shook her head. Reacher nodded at her, like he was conceding the point.
"I used to be a soldier," he said. "I got out, fourteen months ago."
"What unit?" she asked.
"Military Police," he said.
She screwed her face up in a mock grimace.
"The baddest of the bad," she said. "Nobody likes you guys."
"Tell me about it," Reacher said.
"Explains a lot of things," she said. "You guys get a lot of special training. So I guess you really are qualified. You should have told me, damn it. Now I guess I have to apologize for what I said."
He made no reply to that.
"Where were you stationed?" she asked.
"All over the world," he said. "Europe, Far East, Middle East. Got so I didn't know which way was up."
"Rank?" she asked.
"Major," he said.
"Medals?" she asked.
He shrugged.
"Dozens of the damn things," he said. "You know how it is. Theater medals, of course, plus a Silver Star, two Bronzes, Purple Heart from Beirut, campaign things from Panama and Grenada and Desert Shield and Desert Storm."
"A Silver Star?" she asked. "What for?"
"Beirut," he said. "Pulled some guys out of the bunker."
"And you got wounded doing that?" she said. "That's how you got the scar and the Purple Heart?"
"I was already wounded," he said. "Got wounded before I went in. I think that was what impressed them."
"Hero, right?" she said.
He smiled and shook his head.
"No way," he said. "I wasn't feeling anything. Wasn't thinking. Too shocked. I didn't even know I was hit until afterward. If I'd known, I'd have fallen down in a dead faint. My intestine was hanging out. Looked really awful. It was bright pink. Sort of squashy."
Holly was quiet for a second. The truck droned on. Another twenty miles covered. North or south or west. Probably.
"How long were you in the service?" she asked.
"All my life," he said. "My old man was a Marine officer, served all over. He married a Frenchwoman in Korea. I was born in Berlin. Never even saw the States until I was nine years old. Five minutes later we were in the Philippines. Round and round the world we went. Longest I was ever anywhere was four years at West Point. Then I joined up and it started all over again. Round and round the world."
"Where's your family now?" she asked.
"Dead," he said. "The old man died, what? Ten years ago, I guess. My mother died two years later. I buried the Silver Star with her. She won it for me, really. Do what you're supposed to do, she used to tell me. About a million times a day, in a thick French accent."
"Brothers and sisters?" she said.
"I had a brother," he said. "He died last year. I'm the last Reacher on earth, far as I know."
"When did you muster out?" she said.
"April last year," he said. "Fourteen months ago."
"Why?" she asked.
Reacher shrugged.
"Just lost interest, I guess," he said. "The defense cuts were happening. Made the army seem unnecessary, somehow. Like if they didn't need the biggest and the best, they didn't need me. Didn't want to be part of something small and second-rate. So I left. Arrogant, or what?"
She laughed.
"So you became a doorman?" she said. "From a decorated major to a doorman? Isn't that kind of second-rate?"
"Wasn't like that," he said. "I didn't set out to be a doorman, like it was a new career move or anything. It's only temporary. I only got to Chicago on Friday. I was planning to move on, maybe Wednesday. I was thinking about going up to Wisconsin. Supposed to be a nice place, this time of year."
"Friday to Wednesday?" Holly said. "You got a problem with commitment or something?"
"I guess," he said. "Thirty-six years I was always where somebody else told me to be. Very structured sort of a life. I suppose I'm reacting against it. I love moving around when I feel like it. It's like a drug. Longest I've ever stayed anywhere was ten consecutive days. Last fall, in Georgia. Ten days, out of fourteen months. Apart from that, I've been on the road more or less all the time."
"Making a living by working the door at clubs?" she asked.
"That was unusual," he said. "Mostly I don't work at all, just live off my savings. But I came up to Chicago with a singer, one thing, led to another, I got asked to work the door at the club the guy was headed for."
"So what do you do if you don't work?" she asked.
"I look at things," he said. "You got to remember I'm a thirty-seven-year-old American but I've never really been in America much. You been up the Empire State Building?"
"Of course," she said.
"I hadn't," he said. "Not before last year. You been to the Washington museums?"
"Sure," she said.
"I hadn't," he said again. "Not before last year. All that kind of stuff. Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, New Orleans, Mount Rushmore, the Golden Gate, Niagara. I'm like a tourist. Like I'm catching up, right?"
"I'm the other way around," Holly said. "I like to travel overseas."
Reacher shrugged.
"I've seen overseas," he said. "Six continents. I'm going to stay here now."
"I've seen the States," she said. "My dad traveled all the time, but we stayed here, apart from two tours to Germany."
Reacher nodded. Thought back to the time he'd spent in Germany, man and boy. Many years in total.
"You picked up on the soccer in Europe?" he asked.
"Right," Holly said. "Really big deal there. We were stationed one time near Munich, right? I was just a kid, eleven maybe. They gave my father tickets to some big game in Rotterdam, Holland. European Cup, the Bayern Munich team against some English team, Aston Villa, you ever heard of them?"
Reacher nodded.
"From Birmingham, England," he said. "I was stationed near a place called Oxford at one point. About an hour away."
"I hated the Germans," Holly said. "So arrogant, so overpowering. They were so sure they were going to cream these Brits. I didn't want to go and watch it happen. But I had to, right? NATO protocol sort of a thing, would have been a big scandal if I'd refused. So we went. And the Brits creamed the Germans. The Germans were so furious. I loved it. And the Aston Villa guys were so cute. I was in love with soccer from that night on. Still am."
Reacher nodded. He enjoyed watching soccer, to an extent. But you had to be exposed early and gradually. It looked very free-form, but it was a very technical game. Full of hidden attractions. But he could see how a young girl could be seduced by it, long ago in Europe. A frantic night under floodlights in Rotterdam. Resentful and unwilling at first, then hypnotized by the patterns made by the white ball on the green turf. Ending up in love with the game afterward. But something was ringing a warning bell. If the eleven-year-old daughter of an American serviceman had refused to go, it would have caused some kind of an embarrassment within NATO? Was that what she had said?
"Who was your father?" he asked her. "Sounds like he must have been an important sort of a guy."
She shrugged. Wouldn't answer. Reacher stared at her. Another warning bell had started ringing.
"Holly, who the hell is your father?" he asked urgently.
The defensive tone that had been in her voice spread to her face. No answer.
"Who, Holly?" Reacher asked again.
She looked away from him. Spoke to the metal siding of the truck. Her voice was almost lost in the road noise. Defensive as hell.
"General Johnson," she said quietly. "At that time, he was C-in-C Europe. Do you know him?"
Reacher stared up at her. General Johnson. Holly Johnson. Father and daughter.
"I've met him," he said. "But that's not the point, is it?"
She glared at him. Furious.
"Why?" she said. "What exactly is the damn point?"
"That's the reason," he said. "Your father is the most important military man in America, right? That's why you've been kidnapped, Holly, for God's sake. These guys don't want Holly Johnson, FBI agent. The whole FBI thing is incidental. These guys want General Johnson's daughter."
She looked down at him like he had just slapped her hard in the face.
"Why?" she said. "Why the hell does everybody assume everything that ever happens to me is because of who my damn father is?"
"Is it because I'm a woman?" she asked. Tense. "Or because I'm younger than you? Or both?"
"Is what because?" he asked back. Wary.
"You think you've got to take care of me," she said. "You're worrying about me, because I'm young and a woman, right? You think I need some older man's help."
Reacher stirred. He didn't really want to move. He wasn't comfortable, but he guessed he was happy enough where he was. In particular, he was happy with the feel of Holly's hair against his shoulder. His life was like that. Whatever happened there were always some little compensations available.
"Well?" she asked.
"It's not a gender thing, Holly," he said. "Or an age thing. But you do need help, right?"
"And I'm a younger woman and you're an older man," she said. "Therefore obviously you're the one qualified to give it. Couldn't be any other way around, right?"
Reacher shook his head, lying down.
"It's not a gender thing," he said again. "Or an age thing. I'm qualified because I'm qualified, is all. I'm just trying to help you out."
"You're taking stupid risks," she said. "Pushing them and antagonizing them is not the way to do this, for God's sake. You'll get us both killed."
"Bullshit," Reacher said. "They need to see us as people, not cargo."
"Says who?" Holly snapped. "Who suddenly made you the big expert?"
He shrugged at her.
"Let me ask you a question," he said. "If the boot was on the other foot, would you have left me alone in that barn?"
She thought about it.
"Of course I would have," she said.
He smiled. She was probably telling the truth. He liked her for it.
"OK," he said. "Next time you tell me, I'm gone. No argument."
She was quiet for a long moment.
"Good," she said. "You really want to help me out, you do exactly that."
He shrugged. Moved a half-inch closer to her.
"Risky for you," he said. "I get away, they might figure on just wasting you and disappearing."
"I'll take the risk," she said. "That's what I'm paid for."
"So who are they?" he asked her. "And what do they want?"
"No idea," she said.
She said it too quickly. He knew she knew.
"They want you, right?" he said. "Either because they want you personally, or because they want any old FBI agent and you were right there on the spot. How many FBI agents are there?"
"Bureau has twenty-five thousand employees," she said. "Of which ten thousand are agents."
"OK," he said. "So they want you in particular. One out of ten thousand is too big a coincidence. This is not random."
She looked away. He glanced at her.
"Why, Holly?" he asked.
She shrugged and shook her head.
"I don't know," she said.
Too quickly. He glanced at her again. She sounded sure, but there was some big defensive edge there in her reply.
"I don't know," she said again. "All I can figure is maybe they mistook me for somebody else from the office."
Reacher laughed and turned his head toward her. His face touched her hair.
"You're joking, Holly Johnson," he said. "You're not the type of woman gets confused with somebody else. And they watched you three weeks. Long enough to get familiar."
She smiled away from him, up at the metal roof, ironically.
"Once seen, never forgotten, right?" she said. "I wish."
"You in any doubt about that?" Reacher said. "You're the best-looking person I saw this week."
"Thanks, Reacher," she said. "It's Tuesday. You first saw me Monday. Big compliment, right?"
"But you get my drift," he said.
She sat up, straight from the waist like a gymnast, and used both hands to flip her leg sideways. Propped herself on one elbow on the mattress. Hooked her hair behind her ear and looked down at him.
"I don't get anything about you," she said.
He looked back up at her. Shrugged.
"You got questions, you ask them," he said. "I'm all in favor of freedom of information."
"OK," she said. "Here's the first question: who the hell are you?"
He shrugged again and smiled.
"Jack Reacher," he said. "No middle name, thirty-seven years and eight months old, unmarried, club doorman in Chicago."
"Bullshit," she said.
"Bullshit?" he repeated. "Which part? My name, my age, my marital status or my occupation?"
"Your occupation," she said. "You're not a club doorman."
"I'm not?" he said. "So what am I?"
"You're a soldier," she said. "You're in the army."
"I am?" he said.
"It's pretty obvious," she said. "My dad is army. I've lived on bases all my life. Everybody I ever saw was in the army, right up until I was eighteen years old. I know what soldiers look like. I know how they act. I was pretty sure you were one. Then you took your shirt off, and I knew for definite."
Reacher grinned.
"Why?" he said. "Is that a really uncouth, soldierly kind of a thing to do?"
Holly grinned back at him. Shook her head. Her hair came loose. She swept it back behind her ear, one finger bent like a small pale hook.
"That scar on your stomach," she said. Those awful stitches. That's a MASH job for sure. Some field hospital somewhere, took them about a minute and a half. Any civilian surgeon did stitches like that, he'd get sued for malpractice so fast he'd get dizzy."
Reacher ran his finger over the lumpy skin. The stitches looked like a plan of the ties at a busy railroad yard.
"The guy was busy," he said. "I thought he did pretty well, considering the circumstances. It was in Beirut. I was a long way down the priority list. I was only bleeding to death slowly."
"So I'm right?" Holly said. "You're a soldier?"
Reacher smiled up at her again and shook his head.
"I'm a doorman," he said. "Like I told you. Blues joint on the South Side. You should try it. Much better than the tourist places."
She glanced between his huge scar and his face. Clamped her lips and slowly shook her head. Reacher nodded at her, like he was conceding the point.
"I used to be a soldier," he said. "I got out, fourteen months ago."
"What unit?" she asked.
"Military Police," he said.
She screwed her face up in a mock grimace.
"The baddest of the bad," she said. "Nobody likes you guys."
"Tell me about it," Reacher said.
"Explains a lot of things," she said. "You guys get a lot of special training. So I guess you really are qualified. You should have told me, damn it. Now I guess I have to apologize for what I said."
He made no reply to that.
"Where were you stationed?" she asked.
"All over the world," he said. "Europe, Far East, Middle East. Got so I didn't know which way was up."
"Rank?" she asked.
"Major," he said.
"Medals?" she asked.
He shrugged.
"Dozens of the damn things," he said. "You know how it is. Theater medals, of course, plus a Silver Star, two Bronzes, Purple Heart from Beirut, campaign things from Panama and Grenada and Desert Shield and Desert Storm."
"A Silver Star?" she asked. "What for?"
"Beirut," he said. "Pulled some guys out of the bunker."
"And you got wounded doing that?" she said. "That's how you got the scar and the Purple Heart?"
"I was already wounded," he said. "Got wounded before I went in. I think that was what impressed them."
"Hero, right?" she said.
He smiled and shook his head.
"No way," he said. "I wasn't feeling anything. Wasn't thinking. Too shocked. I didn't even know I was hit until afterward. If I'd known, I'd have fallen down in a dead faint. My intestine was hanging out. Looked really awful. It was bright pink. Sort of squashy."
Holly was quiet for a second. The truck droned on. Another twenty miles covered. North or south or west. Probably.
"How long were you in the service?" she asked.
"All my life," he said. "My old man was a Marine officer, served all over. He married a Frenchwoman in Korea. I was born in Berlin. Never even saw the States until I was nine years old. Five minutes later we were in the Philippines. Round and round the world we went. Longest I was ever anywhere was four years at West Point. Then I joined up and it started all over again. Round and round the world."
"Where's your family now?" she asked.
"Dead," he said. "The old man died, what? Ten years ago, I guess. My mother died two years later. I buried the Silver Star with her. She won it for me, really. Do what you're supposed to do, she used to tell me. About a million times a day, in a thick French accent."
"Brothers and sisters?" she said.
"I had a brother," he said. "He died last year. I'm the last Reacher on earth, far as I know."
"When did you muster out?" she said.
"April last year," he said. "Fourteen months ago."
"Why?" she asked.
Reacher shrugged.
"Just lost interest, I guess," he said. "The defense cuts were happening. Made the army seem unnecessary, somehow. Like if they didn't need the biggest and the best, they didn't need me. Didn't want to be part of something small and second-rate. So I left. Arrogant, or what?"
She laughed.
"So you became a doorman?" she said. "From a decorated major to a doorman? Isn't that kind of second-rate?"
"Wasn't like that," he said. "I didn't set out to be a doorman, like it was a new career move or anything. It's only temporary. I only got to Chicago on Friday. I was planning to move on, maybe Wednesday. I was thinking about going up to Wisconsin. Supposed to be a nice place, this time of year."
"Friday to Wednesday?" Holly said. "You got a problem with commitment or something?"
"I guess," he said. "Thirty-six years I was always where somebody else told me to be. Very structured sort of a life. I suppose I'm reacting against it. I love moving around when I feel like it. It's like a drug. Longest I've ever stayed anywhere was ten consecutive days. Last fall, in Georgia. Ten days, out of fourteen months. Apart from that, I've been on the road more or less all the time."
"Making a living by working the door at clubs?" she asked.
"That was unusual," he said. "Mostly I don't work at all, just live off my savings. But I came up to Chicago with a singer, one thing, led to another, I got asked to work the door at the club the guy was headed for."
"So what do you do if you don't work?" she asked.
"I look at things," he said. "You got to remember I'm a thirty-seven-year-old American but I've never really been in America much. You been up the Empire State Building?"
"Of course," she said.
"I hadn't," he said. "Not before last year. You been to the Washington museums?"
"Sure," she said.
"I hadn't," he said again. "Not before last year. All that kind of stuff. Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, New Orleans, Mount Rushmore, the Golden Gate, Niagara. I'm like a tourist. Like I'm catching up, right?"
"I'm the other way around," Holly said. "I like to travel overseas."
Reacher shrugged.
"I've seen overseas," he said. "Six continents. I'm going to stay here now."
"I've seen the States," she said. "My dad traveled all the time, but we stayed here, apart from two tours to Germany."
Reacher nodded. Thought back to the time he'd spent in Germany, man and boy. Many years in total.
"You picked up on the soccer in Europe?" he asked.
"Right," Holly said. "Really big deal there. We were stationed one time near Munich, right? I was just a kid, eleven maybe. They gave my father tickets to some big game in Rotterdam, Holland. European Cup, the Bayern Munich team against some English team, Aston Villa, you ever heard of them?"
Reacher nodded.
"From Birmingham, England," he said. "I was stationed near a place called Oxford at one point. About an hour away."
"I hated the Germans," Holly said. "So arrogant, so overpowering. They were so sure they were going to cream these Brits. I didn't want to go and watch it happen. But I had to, right? NATO protocol sort of a thing, would have been a big scandal if I'd refused. So we went. And the Brits creamed the Germans. The Germans were so furious. I loved it. And the Aston Villa guys were so cute. I was in love with soccer from that night on. Still am."
Reacher nodded. He enjoyed watching soccer, to an extent. But you had to be exposed early and gradually. It looked very free-form, but it was a very technical game. Full of hidden attractions. But he could see how a young girl could be seduced by it, long ago in Europe. A frantic night under floodlights in Rotterdam. Resentful and unwilling at first, then hypnotized by the patterns made by the white ball on the green turf. Ending up in love with the game afterward. But something was ringing a warning bell. If the eleven-year-old daughter of an American serviceman had refused to go, it would have caused some kind of an embarrassment within NATO? Was that what she had said?
"Who was your father?" he asked her. "Sounds like he must have been an important sort of a guy."
She shrugged. Wouldn't answer. Reacher stared at her. Another warning bell had started ringing.
"Holly, who the hell is your father?" he asked urgently.
The defensive tone that had been in her voice spread to her face. No answer.
"Who, Holly?" Reacher asked again.
She looked away from him. Spoke to the metal siding of the truck. Her voice was almost lost in the road noise. Defensive as hell.
"General Johnson," she said quietly. "At that time, he was C-in-C Europe. Do you know him?"
Reacher stared up at her. General Johnson. Holly Johnson. Father and daughter.
"I've met him," he said. "But that's not the point, is it?"
She glared at him. Furious.
"Why?" she said. "What exactly is the damn point?"
"That's the reason," he said. "Your father is the most important military man in America, right? That's why you've been kidnapped, Holly, for God's sake. These guys don't want Holly Johnson, FBI agent. The whole FBI thing is incidental. These guys want General Johnson's daughter."
She looked down at him like he had just slapped her hard in the face.
"Why?" she said. "Why the hell does everybody assume everything that ever happens to me is because of who my damn father is?"
16
McGrath brought Brogan with him and met Milosevic at Meigs Field Airport in Chicago. He brought the four computer-aided mug shots and the test picture of Holly Johnson. He came expecting total co-operation from the airport staff. And he got it. Three hyped-up FBI agents in the grip of fear about a colleague are a difficult proposition to handle with anything other than total co-operation.
Meigs Field was a small commercial operation, right out in the lake, water on three sides, just below the 12th Street beach, trying to make a living in the gigantic shadow of O'Hare. Their record-keeping was immaculate and their efficiency was first-class. Not so they could be ready to handle FBI inquiries on the spur of the moment but so they could keep on operating and keep on getting paid right under the nose of the world's toughest competitor. But their records and their efficiency helped McGrath. Helped him realize within about thirty seconds that he was heading up a blind alley.
The Meigs Field staff were certain they had never seen Holly Johnson or any of the four kidnapers at any time. Certainly not on Monday, certainly not around one o'clock. They were adamant about it. They weren't overdoing it. They were just sure about it, with the quiet certainty of people who spend their working days being quietly sure about things, like sending small planes up into the busiest air lanes on the planet.
And there were no suspicious take-offs from Meigs Field, nowhere between noon and, say, three o'clock. That was clear. The paperwork was explicit on the subject. The three agents were out of there as briskly as they had entered. The tower staff nodded to themselves and forgot all about them before they were even back in their cars in the small parking lot.
"OK, square one," McGrath said. "You guys go check out this dentist situation up in Wilmette. I've got things to do. And I've got to put in a call to Webster. They must be climbing the walls down there in DC."
"Progress, Mack?" Webster asked.
"Some," McGrath said. "We know exactly what happened. We got it all on a security video in a dry-cleaner's store. She went in there at twelve-ten. Came out at twelve-fifteen. There were four guys. Three on the street, one in a car. They grabbed her."
"Then what?" Webster asked.
They were in a stolen sedan," McGrath said. "Looks like they killed the owner to get it. Drove her five miles south, torched the sedan. Along with the owner in the trunk. They burned him alive. He was a dentist, name of Rubin. What they did with Holly, we don't know yet."
In Washington, Harland Webster was silent for a long time.
"Is it worth searching the area?" he asked, eventually.
McGrath's turn to be quiet for a second. Unsure of the implications. Did Webster mean search for a hideout, or search for another body?
"My gut says no," he said. "They must know we could search the area. My feeling is they moved her somewhere else. Maybe far away."
There was silence on the line again. McGrath could hear Webster thinking.
"I agree with you, I guess," Webster said. "They moved her out. But how, exactly? By road? By air?"
"Not air," McGrath said. "We covered commercial flights yesterday. We just hit a private field. Nothing doing."
"What about a helicopter?" Webster said. "In and out, secretly?"
"Not in Chicago, chief," McGrath said. "Not right next door to O'Hare. More radar here than the air force has got. Any unauthorized choppers in and out of here, we'd know about it."
"OK," Webster said. "But we need to get this under control. Abduction and homicide, Mack, it's not giving me a good feeling. You figure a second stolen vehicle? Rendezvoused with the stolen sedan?"
"Probably," McGrath said. "We're checking now."
"Any ideas who they were?" Webster said.
"No," McGrath told him. "We got pretty good pictures off the video. Computer enhancements. We'll download them to you right away. Four guys, white, somewhere between thirty and forty, three of them kind of alike, ordinary, neat, short hair. The fourth guy is real tall, computer says he's maybe six-five. I figure him for the ringleader. He was the one got to her first."
"You got any feeling for a motive yet?" Webster asked.
"No idea at all," McGrath said.
There was silence on the line again.
"OK," Webster said. "You keeping it real tight up there?"
"Tight as I can," McGrath said. "Just three of us."
"Who are you using?" Webster asked.
"Brogan and Milosevic," McGrath said.
"They any good?" Webster asked.
McGrath grunted. Like he would choose them if they weren't?
"They know Holly pretty well," he said. "They're good enough."
"Moaners and groaners?" Webster asked. "Or solid, like people used to be?"
"Never heard them complain," McGrath said. "About anything. They do the work, they do the hours. They don't even bitch about the pay."
Webster laughed.
"Can we clone them?" he said.
The levity peaked and died within a couple of seconds. But McGrath appreciated the attempt at morale.
"So how you doing down there?" he asked.
"In what respect, Mack?" Webster said, serious again.
"The old man," McGrath said. "He giving you any trouble?"
"Which one, Mack?" Webster asked.
"The general?" McGrath said.
"Not yet," Webster said. "He called this morning, but he was polite. That's how it goes. Parents are usually pretty calm, the first day or two. They get worked up later. General Johnson won't be any different. He may be a bigshot, but people are all the same underneath, right?"
"Right," McGrath said. "Have him call me, if he wants first-hand reports. Might help his situation."
"OK, Mack, thanks," Webster said. "But I think we should keep this dentist thing away from everybody, just for the moment. Makes the whole deal look worse. Meantime, send me your stuff. I'll get our people working on it. And don't worry. We'll get her back. Bureau looks after its own, right? Never fails."
The two Bureau chiefs let the lie die into silence and hung up their phones together.
"Job for you," the commander said. "You're young, right? Good with all this technical shit?"
The man nodded cautiously.
"I can usually puzzle stuff out, sir," he said.
The commander nodded back.
"We got a new toy," he said. "Scanner, for radio frequencies. I want a watch kept."
The young man's blood froze hard.
"Why, sir?" he asked. "You think somebody's using a radio transmitter?"
"Possibly," the commander said. "I trust nobody and I suspect everybody. I can't be too careful. Not right now. Got to look after the details. You know what they say? Genius is in the details, right?"
The young man swallowed and nodded.
"So get it set up," the commander said. "Make a duty rota. Two shifts, sixteen hours a day, OK? Constant vigilance is what we need right now."
The commander turned away. The young man nodded and breathed out. Glanced instinctively back in the direction of his special tree and blessed his feelings.
"Lots of husbands disappear," the guy said. "Happens all the time. This is Wilmette, right? Men are the same here as anywhere, only here they got the money to make it all happen. What can I say?"
Milosevic was unsympathetic. The cop had made two other errors. First, he had assumed that it was the murder of the dentist that had brought the FBI out into his jurisdiction. Second, he was more uptight about covering his own ass on the issue than he was about four killers snatching Holly Johnson right off the street. Milosevic was out of patience with the guy. But then the guy redeemed himself.
"What is it with people?" he said. "Burning automobiles? Some in asshole burned a car out by the lake. We got to get it moved. Residents are giving us noise."
"Where exactly?" Milosevic asked him.
The cop shrugged. He was anxious to be very precise.
"That turn-out on the shore," he said. "On Sheridan Road, just this side of Washington Park. Never saw such a thing before, not in Wilmette."
Milosevic and Brogan went to check it out. They followed the cop in his shiny cruiser. He led them to the place. It wasn't a car. It was a pickup, a ten-year-old Dodge. No license plates. Doused with gasoline and pretty much totally burned out.
"Happened yesterday," the cop said. "Spotted about seven-thirty in the morning. Commuters were calling it in, on their way to work, one after the other."
He circled round and looked over the wreck, carefully.
"Not local," he said. "That's my guess."
"Why not?" Milosevic asked him.
"This is ten years old, right?" the guy said. "Around here, there are a few pickups, but they're toys, you know? Big V8s, lots of chrome? An old thing like this, nobody would give it room on their driveway."
"What about gardeners?" Brogan asked. "Tool boys, something like that?"
"Why would they burn it?" the cop said. "They needed to change it, they'd chop it in against a new one, right? Nobody burns a business asset, right?"
Milosevic thought about it and nodded.
"OK," he said. "This is ours. Federal investigation. We'll send a flatbed for it soon as we can. Meanwhile, you guard it, OK? And do it properly, for God's sake. Don't let anybody near it."
"Why?" the cop asked.
Milosevic looked at him like he was a moron.
"This is their truck," he said. They dumped it here and stole the Lexus for the actual heist."
The Wilmette cop looked at Milosevic's agitated face and then he looked across at the burned truck. He wondered for a moment how four guys could fit across the Dodge's bench seat. But he didn't say anything. He didn't want to risk more ridicule. He just nodded.
Meigs Field was a small commercial operation, right out in the lake, water on three sides, just below the 12th Street beach, trying to make a living in the gigantic shadow of O'Hare. Their record-keeping was immaculate and their efficiency was first-class. Not so they could be ready to handle FBI inquiries on the spur of the moment but so they could keep on operating and keep on getting paid right under the nose of the world's toughest competitor. But their records and their efficiency helped McGrath. Helped him realize within about thirty seconds that he was heading up a blind alley.
The Meigs Field staff were certain they had never seen Holly Johnson or any of the four kidnapers at any time. Certainly not on Monday, certainly not around one o'clock. They were adamant about it. They weren't overdoing it. They were just sure about it, with the quiet certainty of people who spend their working days being quietly sure about things, like sending small planes up into the busiest air lanes on the planet.
And there were no suspicious take-offs from Meigs Field, nowhere between noon and, say, three o'clock. That was clear. The paperwork was explicit on the subject. The three agents were out of there as briskly as they had entered. The tower staff nodded to themselves and forgot all about them before they were even back in their cars in the small parking lot.
"OK, square one," McGrath said. "You guys go check out this dentist situation up in Wilmette. I've got things to do. And I've got to put in a call to Webster. They must be climbing the walls down there in DC."
* * *
Seventeen hundred and two miles from Meigs Field the young man in the woods wanted instructions. He was a good agent, well trained, but as far as undercover work was concerned he was new and relatively inexperienced. Demand for undercover operators was always increasing. The Bureau was hard put to fill all the slots. So people like him got assigned. Inexperienced people. He figured as long as he always remembered he didn't have all the answers, he'd be OK. He had no ego problem with it. He was always willing to ask for guidance. He was careful. And he was realistic. Realistic enough to know he was now in over his head. Things were turning bad in a way which made him sure they were about to explode into something much worse. How, he didn't know. It was just a feeling. But he trusted his feelings. Trusted them enough to stop and turn around before he reached his special tree. He breathed hard and changed his mind and set off strolling back the way he had come.* * *
Webster had been waiting for McGrath's call. That was clear. McGrath got him straightaway, like he'd been sitting there in his big office suite just waiting for the phone to ring."Progress, Mack?" Webster asked.
"Some," McGrath said. "We know exactly what happened. We got it all on a security video in a dry-cleaner's store. She went in there at twelve-ten. Came out at twelve-fifteen. There were four guys. Three on the street, one in a car. They grabbed her."
"Then what?" Webster asked.
They were in a stolen sedan," McGrath said. "Looks like they killed the owner to get it. Drove her five miles south, torched the sedan. Along with the owner in the trunk. They burned him alive. He was a dentist, name of Rubin. What they did with Holly, we don't know yet."
In Washington, Harland Webster was silent for a long time.
"Is it worth searching the area?" he asked, eventually.
McGrath's turn to be quiet for a second. Unsure of the implications. Did Webster mean search for a hideout, or search for another body?
"My gut says no," he said. "They must know we could search the area. My feeling is they moved her somewhere else. Maybe far away."
There was silence on the line again. McGrath could hear Webster thinking.
"I agree with you, I guess," Webster said. "They moved her out. But how, exactly? By road? By air?"
"Not air," McGrath said. "We covered commercial flights yesterday. We just hit a private field. Nothing doing."
"What about a helicopter?" Webster said. "In and out, secretly?"
"Not in Chicago, chief," McGrath said. "Not right next door to O'Hare. More radar here than the air force has got. Any unauthorized choppers in and out of here, we'd know about it."
"OK," Webster said. "But we need to get this under control. Abduction and homicide, Mack, it's not giving me a good feeling. You figure a second stolen vehicle? Rendezvoused with the stolen sedan?"
"Probably," McGrath said. "We're checking now."
"Any ideas who they were?" Webster said.
"No," McGrath told him. "We got pretty good pictures off the video. Computer enhancements. We'll download them to you right away. Four guys, white, somewhere between thirty and forty, three of them kind of alike, ordinary, neat, short hair. The fourth guy is real tall, computer says he's maybe six-five. I figure him for the ringleader. He was the one got to her first."
"You got any feeling for a motive yet?" Webster asked.
"No idea at all," McGrath said.
There was silence on the line again.
"OK," Webster said. "You keeping it real tight up there?"
"Tight as I can," McGrath said. "Just three of us."
"Who are you using?" Webster asked.
"Brogan and Milosevic," McGrath said.
"They any good?" Webster asked.
McGrath grunted. Like he would choose them if they weren't?
"They know Holly pretty well," he said. "They're good enough."
"Moaners and groaners?" Webster asked. "Or solid, like people used to be?"
"Never heard them complain," McGrath said. "About anything. They do the work, they do the hours. They don't even bitch about the pay."
Webster laughed.
"Can we clone them?" he said.
The levity peaked and died within a couple of seconds. But McGrath appreciated the attempt at morale.
"So how you doing down there?" he asked.
"In what respect, Mack?" Webster said, serious again.
"The old man," McGrath said. "He giving you any trouble?"
"Which one, Mack?" Webster asked.
"The general?" McGrath said.
"Not yet," Webster said. "He called this morning, but he was polite. That's how it goes. Parents are usually pretty calm, the first day or two. They get worked up later. General Johnson won't be any different. He may be a bigshot, but people are all the same underneath, right?"
"Right," McGrath said. "Have him call me, if he wants first-hand reports. Might help his situation."
"OK, Mack, thanks," Webster said. "But I think we should keep this dentist thing away from everybody, just for the moment. Makes the whole deal look worse. Meantime, send me your stuff. I'll get our people working on it. And don't worry. We'll get her back. Bureau looks after its own, right? Never fails."
The two Bureau chiefs let the lie die into silence and hung up their phones together.
* * *
The young man strolled out of the forest and came face to face with the commander. He was smart enough to throw a big salute and look nervous, but he kept it down to the sort of nervousness any grunt showed around the commander. Nothing more, nothing suspicious. He stood and waited to be spoken to."Job for you," the commander said. "You're young, right? Good with all this technical shit?"
The man nodded cautiously.
"I can usually puzzle stuff out, sir," he said.
The commander nodded back.
"We got a new toy," he said. "Scanner, for radio frequencies. I want a watch kept."
The young man's blood froze hard.
"Why, sir?" he asked. "You think somebody's using a radio transmitter?"
"Possibly," the commander said. "I trust nobody and I suspect everybody. I can't be too careful. Not right now. Got to look after the details. You know what they say? Genius is in the details, right?"
The young man swallowed and nodded.
"So get it set up," the commander said. "Make a duty rota. Two shifts, sixteen hours a day, OK? Constant vigilance is what we need right now."
The commander turned away. The young man nodded and breathed out. Glanced instinctively back in the direction of his special tree and blessed his feelings.
* * *
Milosevic drove Brogan north in his new truck. They detoured via the Wilmette post office so Brogan could mail his twin alimony checks. Then they went looking for the dead dentist's building. There was a local uniform waiting for them in the parking lot in back. He was unapologetic about sitting on the report from the dentist's wife. Milosevic started giving him a hard time about that, like it made the guy personally responsible for Holly Johnson's abduction."Lots of husbands disappear," the guy said. "Happens all the time. This is Wilmette, right? Men are the same here as anywhere, only here they got the money to make it all happen. What can I say?"
Milosevic was unsympathetic. The cop had made two other errors. First, he had assumed that it was the murder of the dentist that had brought the FBI out into his jurisdiction. Second, he was more uptight about covering his own ass on the issue than he was about four killers snatching Holly Johnson right off the street. Milosevic was out of patience with the guy. But then the guy redeemed himself.
"What is it with people?" he said. "Burning automobiles? Some in asshole burned a car out by the lake. We got to get it moved. Residents are giving us noise."
"Where exactly?" Milosevic asked him.
The cop shrugged. He was anxious to be very precise.
"That turn-out on the shore," he said. "On Sheridan Road, just this side of Washington Park. Never saw such a thing before, not in Wilmette."
Milosevic and Brogan went to check it out. They followed the cop in his shiny cruiser. He led them to the place. It wasn't a car. It was a pickup, a ten-year-old Dodge. No license plates. Doused with gasoline and pretty much totally burned out.
"Happened yesterday," the cop said. "Spotted about seven-thirty in the morning. Commuters were calling it in, on their way to work, one after the other."
He circled round and looked over the wreck, carefully.
"Not local," he said. "That's my guess."
"Why not?" Milosevic asked him.
"This is ten years old, right?" the guy said. "Around here, there are a few pickups, but they're toys, you know? Big V8s, lots of chrome? An old thing like this, nobody would give it room on their driveway."
"What about gardeners?" Brogan asked. "Tool boys, something like that?"
"Why would they burn it?" the cop said. "They needed to change it, they'd chop it in against a new one, right? Nobody burns a business asset, right?"
Milosevic thought about it and nodded.
"OK," he said. "This is ours. Federal investigation. We'll send a flatbed for it soon as we can. Meanwhile, you guard it, OK? And do it properly, for God's sake. Don't let anybody near it."
"Why?" the cop asked.
Milosevic looked at him like he was a moron.
"This is their truck," he said. They dumped it here and stole the Lexus for the actual heist."
The Wilmette cop looked at Milosevic's agitated face and then he looked across at the burned truck. He wondered for a moment how four guys could fit across the Dodge's bench seat. But he didn't say anything. He didn't want to risk more ridicule. He just nodded.
17
Holly was sitting up on the mattress, one knee under her chin, the injured leg straight out. Reacher was sitting up beside her, hunched forward, worried, one hand fighting the bounce of the truck and the other hand plunged into his hair.
"What about your mother?" he asked.
"Was your father famous?" Holly asked him back.
Reacher shook his head.
"Hardly," he said. "Guys in his unit knew who he was, I guess."
"So you don't know what it's like," she said. "Every damn thing you do, it happens because of your father. I got straight as in school, I went to Yale and Harvard, went to Wall Street, but it wasn't me doing it, it was this weird other person called General Johnson's daughter doing it. It's been just the same with the Bureau. Everybody assumes I made it because of my father, and ever since I got there half the people are still treating me especially nice, and the other half are still treating me especially tough just to prove how much they're not impressed."
Reacher nodded. Thought about it. He was a guy who had done better than his father. Forged ahead, in the traditional way. Left the old man behind. But he'd known guys with famous parents. The sons of great soldiers. Even the grandsons.
However bright they burned, their light was always lost in the glow.
"OK, so it's tough," he said. "And the rest of your life you can try to ignore it, but right now it needs dealing with. It opens up a whole new can of worms."
She nodded. Blew an exasperated sigh. Reacher glanced at her in the gloom.
"How long ago did you figure it out?" he asked.
She shrugged.
"Immediately, I guess," she said. "Like I told you, it's a habit. Everybody assumes everything happens because of my father. Me too."
"Well, thanks for telling me so soon," Reacher said.
She didn't reply to that. They lapsed into silence. The air was stifling and the heat was somehow mixing with the relentless drone of the noise. The dark and the temperature and the sound were like a thick soup inside the truck. Reacher felt like he was drowning in it. But it was the uncertainty that was doing it to him. Many times he'd traveled thirty hours at a stretch in transport planes, worse conditions than these. It was the huge new dimension of uncertainty that was unsettling him.
"What about your mother?" he asked.
"Was your father famous?" Holly asked him back.
Reacher shook his head.
"Hardly," he said. "Guys in his unit knew who he was, I guess."
"So you don't know what it's like," she said. "Every damn thing you do, it happens because of your father. I got straight as in school, I went to Yale and Harvard, went to Wall Street, but it wasn't me doing it, it was this weird other person called General Johnson's daughter doing it. It's been just the same with the Bureau. Everybody assumes I made it because of my father, and ever since I got there half the people are still treating me especially nice, and the other half are still treating me especially tough just to prove how much they're not impressed."
Reacher nodded. Thought about it. He was a guy who had done better than his father. Forged ahead, in the traditional way. Left the old man behind. But he'd known guys with famous parents. The sons of great soldiers. Even the grandsons.
However bright they burned, their light was always lost in the glow.
"OK, so it's tough," he said. "And the rest of your life you can try to ignore it, but right now it needs dealing with. It opens up a whole new can of worms."
She nodded. Blew an exasperated sigh. Reacher glanced at her in the gloom.
"How long ago did you figure it out?" he asked.
She shrugged.
"Immediately, I guess," she said. "Like I told you, it's a habit. Everybody assumes everything happens because of my father. Me too."
"Well, thanks for telling me so soon," Reacher said.
She didn't reply to that. They lapsed into silence. The air was stifling and the heat was somehow mixing with the relentless drone of the noise. The dark and the temperature and the sound were like a thick soup inside the truck. Reacher felt like he was drowning in it. But it was the uncertainty that was doing it to him. Many times he'd traveled thirty hours at a stretch in transport planes, worse conditions than these. It was the huge new dimension of uncertainty that was unsettling him.