Persuader Part 25

CHAPTER 8

I came around to the front of the house and faced west and stood in the las.h.i.+ng rain and stared at the high stone wall. Right at that moment I came as close as I ever got to bailing out. It would have been easy. The gate was wide open. I guessed the maid had left it that way. She had gotten out in the rain to open it and she hadn't wanted to get out again to close it. Paulie wasn't there to do it for her. He was out, driving the Cadillac. So the gate was open. And unguarded. The first time I had ever seen it that way. I could have slipped straight through it. But I didn't. I stayed.

Time was part of the reason. Beyond the gate was at least twelve miles of empty road before the first significant turning. Twelve miles. And there were no cars to use. The Becks were out in the Cadillac and the maid was out in the Saab. We had abandoned the Lincoln in Connecticut. So I would be on foot. Three hours' fast walk. I didn't have three hours. Almost certainly the Cadillac would return within three hours. And there was nowhere to hide on the road. The shoulders were bare and rocky. It was an exposed situation. Beck would pa.s.s me head-on. I would be walking. He would be in a car. And he had a gun. And Paulie. I had nothing.

Therefore strategy was part of the reason, too. To be caught in the act of walking away would confirm whatever Beck might think he knew, a.s.suming it was Beck who had discovered the stash. But if I stayed I had some kind of a chance. Staying would imply innocence. I could deflect suspicion onto Duke. I could say it must have been Duke's stash. Beck might find that plausible. Maybe. Duke had enjoyed the freedom to go wherever he wanted, any time of night or day. I had been locked up and supervised the whole time. And Duke wasn't around anymore to deny anything. But I would be right there in Beck's face, talking loud and fast and persuasive. He might buy it.

Hope was part of the reason, too. Maybe it wasn't Beck who had found the stash. Maybe it was Richard, walking the sh.o.r.eline. His reaction would be unpredictable. I figured it at fifty-fifty whether he would approach me or his father first. Or maybe it was Elizabeth who had found it. She was familiar with the rocks out there. She knew them well. Knew their secrets. I guessed she had spent plenty of time on them, for one reason or another.

And her reaction would favor me. Probably.

The rain was part of the reason for staying, too. It was cold and hard and relentless. I was too tired to road march three hours in the rain. I knew it was just weakness. But I couldn't move my feet. I wanted to go back inside the house. I wanted to get warm and eat again and rest.

Fear of failure was part of the reason, too. If I walked away now I would never come back. I knew that. And I had invested two weeks. I had made good progress. People were depending on me. I had been beaten many times. But I had never just quit. Not once. Not ever. If I quit now, it would eat me up the rest of my days. Jack Reacher, quitter. Walked away when the going got tough.

I stood there with the rain driving against my back. Time, strategy, hope, the weather, fear of failure. All parts of the reason for staying. All right there on the list.

But top of the list was a woman.

Not Susan Duffy, not Teresa Daniel. A woman from long ago, from another life. She was called Dominique Kohl. I was a captain in the army when I met her. I was one year away from my final promotion to major. I got to my office early one morning and found the usual stack of paperwork on my desk. Most of it was junk. But among it was a copy of an order a.s.signing an E-7 Sergeant First Cla.s.s Kohl, D.E. to my unit. Back then we were in a phase where all written references to personnel had to be gender-neutral. The name Kohl sounded German to me and I pictured some big ugly guy from Texas or Minnesota.

Big red hands, big red face, older than me, maybe thirty-five, with a whitewall haircut.

Later in the morning the clerk buzzed through to say the guy was reporting for duty. I made him wait ten minutes just for the fun of it and then called him in. But the him was a her and she wasn't big and ugly. She was wearing a skirt. She was about twenty-nine years old. She wasn't tall, but she was too athletic to be called pet.i.te. And she was too pretty to be called athletic. It was like she had been exquisitely molded from the stuff they make the inside of tennis b.a.l.l.s out of. There was an elasticity about her. A firmness and a softness, all at the same time. She looked sculpted, but she had no hard edges. She stood rigidly at attention in front of my desk and snapped a smart salute. I didn't return it, which was rude of me. I just stared at her for five whole seconds.

"At ease, Sergeant," I said.

She handed me her copy of her orders and her personnel file. We called them service jackets. They contained everything anybody needed to know. I left her standing easy in front of me while I read hers through, which was rude of me too, but there was no other option. I didn't have a visitor's chair. Back then the army didn't provide them below the rank of full colonel. She stood completely still, hands clasped behind her back, staring at a point in the air exactly a foot above my head.

Her jacket was impressive. She had done a little of everything and succeeded at it all in spectacular fas.h.i.+on. Expert marksman, specialist in a number of skills, tremendous arrest record, excellent clear-up percentage. She was a good leader and had been promoted fast.

She had killed two people, one with a firearm, one unarmed, both incidents rated righteous by the subsequent investigating panels. She was a rising star. That was clear. I realized that her transfer represented a substantial compliment to me, in some superior's mind.

"Glad to have you aboard," I said.

"Sir, thank you, sir," she said, with her eyes fixed in s.p.a.ce.

"I don't do all that s.h.i.+t," I said. "I'm not afraid I'm going to vaporize if you look at me and I don't really like one sir in a sentence, let alone two, OK?"

"OK," she said. She caught on fast. She never called me sir again, the whole rest of her life.

"Want to jump right in at the deep end?" I said.

She nodded. "Sure."

I rattled open a drawer and slid a slim file out and pa.s.sed it across to her. She didn't look at it. Just held it one-handed down by her side and looked at me.

"Aberdeen, Maryland," I said. "At the proving grounds. There's a weapons designer acting weird. Confidential tip from a buddy who's worried about espionage. But I think it's more likely blackmail. Could be a long and sensitive investigation."

"No problem," she said.

She was the reason I didn't walk out through the open and unguarded gate.

I went inside instead and took a long hot shower. n.o.body likes to risk confrontation when they're wet and naked, but I was way past caring. I guess I was feeling fatalistic.

Whatever, bring it on. Then I wrapped up in a towel and went down a flight and found Duke's room. Stole another set of his clothes. I dressed in them and put my own shoes and jacket and coat on. Went back to the kitchen to wait. It was warm in there. The way the sea was pounding and the rain was beating on the windows made it feel warmer still.

It was like a sanctuary. The cook was in there, doing something with a chicken.

"Got coffee?" I asked her.

She shook her head.

"Why not?"

"Caffeine," she said.

I looked at the back of her head.

"Caffeine is the whole point of coffee," I said. "Anyway, tea's got caffeine, and I've seen you make that."

"Tea has tannin," she said.

"And caffeine," I said.

"So drink tea instead," she said.

I looked around the room. There was a wooden block standing vertically on a counter with black knife handles protruding at angles. There were bottles and gla.s.ses. I guessed under the sink there might be ammonia sprays. Maybe some chlorine bleach. Enough improvised weapons for a close-quarters fight. If Beck was even a little inhibited about shooting in a crowded room, I might be OK. I might be able to take him before he took me. All I would need was half a second.

"You want coffee?" the cook asked. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes," I said. "It is."

"All you have to do is ask."

"I did ask."

"No, you asked if there was any," she said. "Not the same thing."

"So will you make me some? Please?"

"What happened to Mr. Duke?"

I paused. Maybe she was planning on marrying him, like in old movies where the cook marries the butler and they retire and live happily ever after.

"He was killed," I said.

"Last night?"

I nodded. "In an ambush."

"Where?"

"In Connecticut."

"OK," she said. "I'll make you some coffee."

She set the machine going. I watched where she got everything from. The filter papers were stored in a cupboard next to the paper napkins. The coffee itself was in the freezer.

The machine was old and slow. It made a loud ponderous gulping sound. Combined with the rain las.h.i.+ng on the windows and the waves pounding on the rocks it meant I didn't hear the Cadillac come back. First I knew, the back door was thrown open and Elizabeth Beck burst in with Richard crowding after her and Beck himself bringing up the rear.

They were moving with the kind of exhilarated breathless urgency people show after a short fast dash through heavy rain.

"h.e.l.lo," Elizabeth said to me.

I nodded. Said nothing.

"Coffee," Richard said. "Great."

"We went out for breakfast," Elizabeth said. "Old Orchard Beach. There's a little diner there we like."

"Paulie figured we shouldn't wake you," Beck said. "He figured you looked pretty tired last night. So he offered to drive us instead."

"OK," I said. Thought: Did Paulie find my stash? Did he tell them yet? "You want coffee?" Richard asked me. He was over by the machine, rattling cups in his hand.

"Black," I said. "Thanks."

He brought me a cup. Beck was peeling off his coat and shaking water off it onto the floor.

"Bring it through," he called. "We need to talk."

He headed out to the hallway and looked back like he expected me to follow him. I took my coffee with me. It was hot and steaming. I could toss it in his face if I had to. He led me toward the square paneled room we had used before. I was carrying my cup, which slowed me down a little. He got there well ahead of me. When I entered he was already all the way over by one of the windows with his back to me, looking out at the rain.

When he turned around he had a gun in his hand. I just stood still. I was too far away to use the coffee. Maybe fourteen feet. It would have looped up and curled and dispersed in the air and probably missed him altogether.

The gun was a Beretta M9 Special Edition, which was a civilian Beretta 92FS all dressed up to look exactly like a standard military-issue M9. It used nine-millimeter Parabellum ammunition. It had a fifteen-round magazine and military dot-and-post sights. I remembered with bizarre clarity that the retail price had been $861. I had carried an M9 for thirteen years. I had fired many thousands of practice rounds with it and more than a few for real. Most of them had hit their targets, because it's an accurate weapon. Most of the targets had been destroyed, because it's a powerful weapon. It had served me well. I even remembered the original sales pitch from the ordnance people: It's got manageable recoil and it's easy to strip in the field. They had repeated it like a mantra. Over and over again. I guess there were contracts at stake. There was some controversy. Navy SEALs hated it. They claimed they'd had dozens blow up in their faces. They even made up a cadence song about it: No way are you a Navy Seal, until you eat some Italian steel. But the M9 always served me well. It was a fine weapon, in my opinion. Beck's example looked like a brand-new gun. The finish was immaculate. Dewy with oil. There was luminescent paint on the sights. It glowed softly in the gloom.

I waited.

Beck just stood there, holding the gun. Then he moved. He slapped the barrel into his left palm and took his right hand away. Leaned over the oak table and held the thing out to me, b.u.t.t-first, left-handed, politely, like he was a clerk in a store.

"Hope you like it," he said. "I thought you might feel at home with it. Duke was into the exotics, like that Steyr he had. But I figured you'd be more comfortable with the Beretta, you know, given your background."

I stepped forward. Put my coffee on the table. Took the gun from him. Ejected the magazine, checked the chamber, worked the action, looked down the barrel. It wasn't spiked. It wasn't a trick. It was a working piece. The Parabellums were real. It was brand new. It had never been fired. I slapped it back together and just held it for a moment. It was like shaking hands with an old friend. Then I c.o.c.ked it and locked it and put it in my pocket.

"Thanks," I said.

He put his hand in his own pocket and came out with two spare magazines.

"Take these," he said.

He pa.s.sed them across. I took them.

"I'll get you more later," he said.

"OK," I said.

"You ever tried laser sights?"

I shook my head.

"There's a company called Laser Devices," he said. "They do a universal handgun sight that mounts under the barrel. Plus a little flashlight that clips under the sight. Very cool device."

"Gives a little red spot?"

He nodded. Smiled. "n.o.body likes to get lit up with that little red spot, that's for sure."

"Expensive?"

"Not really," he said. "Couple hundred bucks."

"How much weight does it add?"

"Four and a half ounces," he said.

"All at the front?"

"It helps, actually," he said. "Stops the muzzle kicking upward when you fire. It adds about thirteen percent of the weight of the gun. More with the flashlight, of course.

Maybe forty, forty-five ounces total. Still way less than those Anacondas you were using.

What were they, fifty-nine ounces?"

"Unloaded," I said. "More with six sh.e.l.ls in them. Am I ever going to get them back?"

"I put them away somewhere," he said. "I'll get them for you later."

"Thanks," I said again.

"You want to try the laser?"