REACHER 03 - TRIPWIRE by Lee Child

Author:Lee Child
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-07-01T20:33:22.418000+00:00

'I talked things over with my husband,' she lied.

Tony looked at her, expectantly, waiting for her to speak again. She let him wait. Score two, she thought.

'We agree to the transfer,' she said. 'But it's going to be complicated. It's going to take some time. There are factors I don't think you appreciate. We'll do it, but we're going to expect some minimum co-operation from you along the way.' Tony nodded. 'Like what?' 'I'll discuss that with Hobie,' she said. 'Not with you.' There was silence in the office. Just faint noises from the world outside. She concentrated on her breathing. In and out, in and out.

'OK,' Tony said.

Score three, she thought.

'We want coffee,' she said. 'Three cups, cream and sugar.' More silence. Then Tony nodded and the thickset man stood up. He looked away and walked out of the office towards the kitchen. Score four, she thought. The return address on Rutter's letter corresponded to a dingy storefront some blocks south of any hope of urban renewal. It was a clapboard building sandwiched between crumbling four-storey brick structures that may have been factories or warehouses before they were abandoned decades ago. Rutter's place had a filthy window on the left and an entrance in the centre and a roll-up door standing open on the right revealing a narrow garage area. There was a brand-new Lincoln Navigator squeezed in the space. Reacher recognized the model from advertisements he'd seen. It was a giant four-wheel-drive Ford, with a thick gloss of luxury added in order to justify its elevation to the Lincoln division. This one was metallic black, and it was probably worth more than the real estate wrapped around it.

Jodie drove right past the building, not fast, not slow, just plausible citystreet speed over the potholed road. Reacher craned his head around, getting a feel for the place. Jodie made a left and came back around the block. Reacher glimpsed a service alley running behind the row, with rusted fire escapes hanging above piles of garbage.

'So how do we do this?' Jodie asked him.

'We walk right in,' he said. 'First thing we do is we watch his reaction. If he knows who we are, we'll play it one way. If he doesn't, we'll play it another.'

She parked two spaces south of the storefront, in the shadow of a blackened brick warehouse. She locked the car and they walked north together. From the sidewalk they could make out what was behind the dirty window. There was a lame display of Army-surplus equipment, dusty old camouflage jackets and water canteens and boots. There were field radios and MRE rations and infantry helmets. Some of the stuff was already obsolete before Reacher graduated from West Point.

The door was stiff and it worked a bell when it opened. It was a crude mechanical system whereby the moving door flicked a spring that flicked the bell and made the sound. The store was deserted. There was a counter on the right with a door behind it to the garage.

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