O’Day shook his head and said, ‘He went back to Arkansas.’
‘And?’
‘We put a surveillance drone over his house a couple of times in the first month. We saw nothing to worry about. Then the drone was needed elsewhere, and he went on the back burner.’
‘And now?’
‘We got the drone back. His house is empty. No sign of life.’
Casey Nice walked me over to the quarters Shoemaker had mentioned, which turned out to be an improvised little village made up of separate prefabricated and transportable living units adapted from fifty-three-foot steel shipping containers. Eight feet high, eight feet wide, with windows and doors cut into them, and AC, and water lines and power lines all hooked up. Mine was painted sand yellow, probably shipped back from Iraq. I had lived in worse places. It was a pleasant night. Spring, in North Carolina. Too early in the year to be hot, too late to be cold. There were stars out in the sky, and ghostly wisps of cloud.
We stopped at my metal door and I said, ‘Are you in one of these things?’
Casey Nice pointed to the next row. ‘The white one,’ she said. If she was on First Street, then I was on Second. I said, ‘Is this what you signed up for?’
‘This is where the rubber meets the road,’ she said. ‘I’m happy enough.’
‘It’s likely not Kott,’ I said again. ‘Statistically when it comes to snipers the Russians produce the most and the best. And the Israelis love fifty-calibre rounds. It’s likely one of those two.’
‘But it’s the yoga that worries us. Clearly Kott had an aim in life. He was planning to get out and take up where he left off.’ Then she nodded to herself, as if her job was done, and she walked away and left me there. I opened my door and went inside.
Inside looked exactly like a fifty-three-foot shipping container, all corrugated metal, painted glossy white all around, with a living area and a kitchen and a bathroom and a bedroom all in a line. Like an old-fashioned railroad apartment. The windows had blast covers that dropped down inside to make work surfaces. There was a plywood floor. I unpacked, which consisted of taking my clip-together toothbrush from my pocket, assembling it, and propping it in a bathroom glass. I thought about taking a shower, but I never got to it, because there was a knock at my door. I hiked back through the narrow cramped rectangle and opened up.
Another woman in a black skirt suit and dark nylons and good shoes. This one was closer to my own age. She had an air of command and seniority. Her hair was silvery black, neatly cut but not styled or coloured. Her face had been pretty once, and was handsome now. She said, ‘Mr Reacher? I’m Joan Scarangello.’
She stuck out her hand. I took it and shook it. It felt slim but strong. Plain nails, cut short and square. Clear polish. No rings. I said, ‘CIA?’
She smiled and said, ‘It’s not supposed to be
that
obvious.’
‘I already met State and Special Forces. I figured the third wheel would come rolling down the pike pretty soon.’
‘May I come in?’
My living area was eight feet high and eight feet wide and about thirteen feet long. Adequate for two, but only just. The furniture was bolted to the floor, a short sofa and two small chairs, all arranged in a tight little grouping. Like an RV, or maybe a design study for a new Gulfstream cabin. I sat on the sofa and Joan Scarangello sat in a chair, and we adjusted our relative angles until we were looking at each other face to face.
She said, ‘We very much appreciate your help.’
I said, ‘I haven’t done anything yet.’
‘But I’m sure you will, if necessary.’
‘Did the FBI go out of business? Isn’t finding American citizens in America normally their job?’
‘Kott might not be in America. Not currently.’
‘Then he’s your job.’
‘And we’re doing it. Which includes getting the best help we can. Anything else would be negligent. You know the man.’
‘I busted him sixteen years ago. Apart from that I know nothing about him.’
‘The EU, then the G8, and then the G20,’ she said. ‘The European Union, then the world’s eight largest economies, and then the world’s twenty largest economies. Heads of state, all in the same place at the same time. By definition all but one of them on unfamiliar turf. If one of them goes down, it’s a disaster. If more than one goes down, it’s a catastrophe. And as I believe you pointed out, the Paris shooter was ready to fire twice. And why would he stop at two? Imagine if three or four went down. We’d have paralysis. Markets would crash, and we’d be back in recession. People would starve. Wars might start. The whole world could fall apart.’
‘Maybe they should cancel their meetings.’
‘Same result. The world has to be governed. They can’t do it all by phone.’
‘They could for a month or two.’
‘But who’s going to propose that? Who’s going to blink first? Us, in front of the Russians? The Russians, in front of us? The Chinese, in front of anybody?’
‘So this is all a testosterone thing?’
Joan Scarangello said, ‘What isn’t?’
I said, ‘Speaking of governing the world, I don’t even have a phone.’
She said, ‘Would you like one?’
‘My point is, John Kott is a guy I met for one day, sixteen years ago. I have no resources, no communications, no databases, no systems, no nothing.’
‘We have all of that. We’ll give you what leads we have.’
‘And then send me out to get him?’
She didn’t answer.
I said, ‘Here’s the thing, Ms Scarangello. I know I only just got here, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. If Kott’s the guy, you want me out there blundering around because whoever is bankrolling him will want to stop me. Whatever faction, as O’Day likes to say. I’m supposed to bring them out in the open. That’s all. All I am is bait.’
She didn’t answer.
I said, ‘Or maybe you want Kott to come for me himself. He’s plenty mad at me, after all. I put him away for fifteen years. I’m sure that put a crimp in his lifetime plans. He’s probably nursing an appropriate degree of resentment. Maybe all that yoga was for me personally, not general career advancement.’
‘No one is thinking in terms of bait.’
‘Bullshit. Tom O’Day thinks of everything, and chooses the easiest and most effective.’
‘Are you scared?’
‘You know any infantrymen?’
‘This base has plenty.’
‘Talk to them. The infantry puts up with a world of shit. They live in holes in the ground, cold, wet, muddy, hungry, with incoming mortars and artillery and rockets, and bombs and gas, and air assault and missiles, and they have nothing ahead of them except barbed wire and machine-gun nests, but you know what they hate most of all?’
‘Snipers,’ she said.
‘Correct,’ I said. ‘Random death, out of nowhere, any time, any place, no notice, no warning. Every minute of every day. No relief. The stress becomes unbearable. It sends some of them mad, literally. And I can understand why. Right now I’m sitting in a little metal box and I’m already liking it more than I should.’
‘I met your brother once,’ Scarangello said.
‘Really?’
She nodded. ‘Joe Reacher. I was a young case officer and he was with military intelligence. We worked together on a thing.’
‘And now you’re going to tell me he spoke well of me and said I was the baddest son of a bitch in the valley. You’re going to leverage a dead man.’
‘I’m sorry he died. But he did speak well of you.’
‘If Joe was here he’d tell me to run away from this thing as far and as fast as I can. There’s a clue in the title. Military, and intelligence. He knew Tom O’Day too.’
‘You don’t like O’Day, do you?’
‘I think someone should give him a medal and a bullet in the head and name a bridge after him.’
‘Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.’
‘I’m surprised he’s still in business.’
‘This kind of thing keeps him in business. Now more than ever. He’s front and centre.’
I said nothing.
Scarangello said, ‘We can’t make you stay.’
I shrugged.
‘I owe Rick Shoemaker a favour,’ I said. ‘I’ll stick around.’
Predictable.
SIX
SCARANGELLO LEFT AFTER
that, leaving a faint perfumed scent in the air, and I took my shower and went to bed. O’Day liked to start every morning with a conference, and I planned to be there, right after breakfast. Which I couldn’t find. The dawn light showed we were stuck in a remote corner of Pope Field, which was vast. I figured I was a mile or more from the nearest mess hall. Maybe five miles. And my movements were restricted. Walking around Fort Bragg unauthorized wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Not under the current circumstances. Not under any circumstances, really.
So I headed back to the red door and found Casey Nice in a room with a table. The table was loaded with muffins and pastries on plates, and big catering boxes of coffee. Dunkin’ Donuts, not army issue. Private catering. Reforms. Anything to save a buck.
Casey Nice said, ‘Comfortable quarters?’
I said, ‘Better than sleeping in a hollow log.’
‘Is that what you normally do?’
‘Figure of speech,’ I said.
‘But you slept well?’
‘Terrific.’
‘Did you meet anyone last night?’
‘I met a woman named Joan Scarangello.’
‘Good.’
‘Who is she exactly?’
‘A deputy to the deputy director of operations.’
Which sounded junior, but wasn’t. In CIA-speak a D-DDO was part of a tiny circle at the very top. One of the three or four most plugged-in people on the planet. Her natural habitat would be a Langley office about eight times the size of my shipping container, probably with more phones on the desk than I had seen in my entire life. I said, ‘They’re really taking this seriously, aren’t they?’
‘They have to, don’t you think?’
I didn’t answer that, and then Scarangello herself came in. She nodded a greeting and took a muffin and a cup of coffee. Then she left again. I took two muffins and an empty cup and a whole box of coffee. I figured I could prop it on the edge of the conference table with the spigot facing towards me. Refills as and when required. Like an alcoholic behind a bar.
The morning conference was in a room next to O’Day’s upstairs office. Nothing fancy. Just four plain tables pushed together in a square, and eight chairs for the five of us. Shoemaker and O’Day and Scarangello were already in their places. Casey Nice sat down next to Scarangello and I chose a spot with an empty chair either side. I got the coffee set up and bit the head off a muffin.
Shoemaker went first. He was in fatigues again, with his star, which was not surprising, but his opening analysis was informed enough to suggest he might have been worth it, which was. He said, ‘The Polish government looks set to announce a snap election, and the Greeks too, probably. Which looks like democracy in action, but if you drill down into the European Union constitution you find a provision that allows heads-ofstate pow-wows to be postponed if two or more member states are at the polls. In other words, they’re running for the hills. The EU meeting ain’t going to happen. Which moves us on to the G8 in three weeks. Those plans are still intact. Which gives us both the time and the target.’
I took a breath to speak but O’Day shot out a lengthy arm, with his palm towards me, like he was telling a dog to stay, and he said, ‘You’re about to warn us we’re making a massive assumption here, and that the real target could be anything. Which is correct, but please understand we don’t care about any other target. If something else gets hit, we’ll be dancing jigs and reels. Until then, for operational purposes, we’re assuming an assassination attempt against a world leader is already a proven fact.’
I said, ‘I was going to ask who’s in the G8.’
Which must have been a dumb question, because they all started fidgeting and no one answered. Eventually Casey Nice said, ‘Ourselves and Canada, the UK and France, Germany and Italy, and Japan and Russia.’
I said, ‘Those aren’t the eight largest economies.’
‘They were once,’ Joan Scarangello said. ‘Some things get set in stone.’
‘So if this is personal or nationalist it could be any one of them. But if it’s some big terrorist statement, then with all due respect, it’s probably not Italy. I mean, who would notice? Those guys change every three weeks anyway. Or Canada. You wouldn’t recognize the guy if you saw him in the grocery store. Japan, the same. And France. The UK, too. Some posh boy goes face down, it’s not going to destabilize the world. Germany is possibly a slight problem.’
Scarangello nodded. ‘Europe’s largest economy, the region’s only fiscal grown-up, and a whole new psyche that absolutely depends on politicians
not
getting shot. Things could unravel. And rock bottom is a long way down in Germany.’
‘So it’s ourselves and Russia and Germany. Which is easy. Just keep those three guys under wraps. No fresh air for them. Let the other five walk about. Or send the vice presidents too, for the photo ops. Which could be spun. We’re so ballsy we’ll send both of them.’
O’Day nodded. ‘That’s Plan B, and it’s already drafted. Plan A is to find John Kott. And to hope that London and Moscow and Tel Aviv meet with similar success.’
‘Do we know anything about their guys?’
‘We know all about them. The Brit is an ex-SAS operator named Carson. In uniform he had more than fifty kills around the world, not that anyone will admit it, one of them at two thousand yards, documented and verified. The Russian is a guy called Datsev. His first instructor was at Stalingrad, which was a hard school. The Israeli is called Rozan. Best they ever saw with a fifty-calibre Barrett, which is really saying something, for the IDF.’
‘They all sound better than Kott.’
‘No, they sound about as good as. Fourteen hundred yards was nothing to Kott. Pure routine. Until you busted him, that is.’
‘You sound like you think I shouldn’t have.’
‘He was worth more to us than the grunt he killed.’
I said, ‘Where is the G8 meeting?’
‘London,’ O’Day said. ‘Technically just outside. A stately home, or an old castle. Something like that.’