Page 26 of Exit Strategy
‘The hellwewill. No, I’ll talk to her. Like I said, she’s cute.’ Gilmour killed the engine and opened his door. ‘Come on. This is it. My other place. The one no one’s supposed to know about. We’ll sleep here tonight. What’s left of it.’
SIXTEEN
Gilmour was happy to spend the rest of the evening at his secret apartment. He felt it was a less predictable move, if anyone had watched them leave his regular place. And it had the advantage of having a couch as well as a bed. That took away the obligation to sleep on the floor, which he would hate to do. Partly because it was uncomfortable, and his bones were less forgiving than they’d once been. But mainly because it would make him feel like a loser for having needed to sell most of his furniture when he was totally broke. There are some things in life you don’t need to be reminded of.
Reacher was happy to spend the night at that apartment, too, but not because of the sleeping arrangements. Because the place had a coffee machine, and he needed a decent mug before he turned in, given the upsand downs of the day. He found an unopened pack of grounds in one of the cupboards. It was long expired but he used it, anyway. The brew came out stale, like dissolved cardboard, but Reacher didn’t mind. He wasn’t much of a connoisseur. He went with strength over flavor every time.
Gilmour had offered to let Reacher have the bed, but Reacher refused. He was sure the couch would be fine. He waited for Gilmour to close the bedroom door, used the bathroom, then settled down, using his new coat as a pillow. His legs hung over the couch’s arm from his knees down, and beneath him the rips in the cushions grew longer and deeper, but he didn’t care. He had slept in worse places over the years. Much worse, many times. And he had a knack for dropping off to sleep pretty much at will. He could usually count on being under within thirty seconds of lying down, but that night it took him longer. The events of the day had left him with a lot to think about. He shifted positions and felt the phone Gilmour had given him in his pocket. He took it out and managed to get the photograph to come back onto the screen. The picture of the man who had approached Gilmour. The link to whatever else was going on. Reacher studied his face. The sharp angles of the guy’s skull were showing through his dusting of gray hair. His nose had been broken more than once. That was clear. And his eyes looked cold and bleak. Reacher imagined staring into them in real life. He imagined what lay behind them. The mind of a person who took advantage of vulnerable veterans. Who moved people around like pawns on a chessboard for his own advantage. Who made hideousthreats against little children. Reacher didn’t know if the guy would follow through with blinding Gilmour’s nephew if Gilmour defied him. His gut told him it was probably a bluff. But in the moment that didn’t matter. Reacher felt his heart start to beat faster. The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand upright. A rage was building inside him. It wasn’t a thing he could control. It was an unconscious response hardwired into him like an allergic reaction to a toxin. He liked Gilmour. He sympathized with him. But Gilmour barely moved the needle compared to this other guy. This abuser. This bully. There was no question. Reacher was going to stop him. That was for damn sure. He would see to that personally.
Reacher shifted his position again, eyes closed, and then another thought intruded on his rest. There was a second part of the equation. The smuggling operation. He turned the details over in his head. Some faceless gang inserting their wares into other people’s cargo containers like parasites. Maybe they were bringing drugs. Maybe guns. Or off-label medicine. Cigarettes. Electronics. Stolen art. Any number of possibilities. Whatever it was, it needed to be stopped. So did the people behind it, and everyone who helped them. That was important. But somehow Reacher felt less invested in that side of things. He figured he would make sure that Gilmour’s nephew was out of danger, then dial 911. The police could deal with the smugglers. Or the Coast Guard. He didn’t need to handle that aspect himself.
At two a.m. outside, the contours of the world were lost in the soft darkness of the night. The area around theentrance to the former Kinsella limestone mine was barely visible in the few gentle rays of moonlight that reached it. There was an occasional hum of traffic on the distant highway. The hoot of an owl. Scurrying claws as a fox or badger hurried by, careful to keep clear of the infrared beams that crisscrossed the approach to the mine’s gate and threatened to flood the area with harsh artificial light.
At two a.m. inside, the level of brightness in each of the zones could be set to whatever Morgan Strickland wanted it to be. For the desert terrain he chose dusk, made a few other arrangements, then returned to the storeroom. He entered his code, opened the door, stepped inside, and approached Jacklin. He was standing near the bottom of a metal-framed cot, one wrist cuffed to its rail, shivering uncontrollably.
Strickland said, ‘Turn sideways. Put your free hand behind your back. Try anything and I’ll shoot you in the spine.’
Jacklin turned. He said, ‘Hurry, please. This place is as creepy as hell. I thought I was going to freeze to death or die of fright.’
Strickland ignored him. Thirty-five Fahrenheit is no picnic, but it’s not life-threatening. Not for a few minutes in the dry with no wind. A healthy man should survive for a few hours. He’d learned that theory on a training exercise. And he’d experienced the reality in the desert in Iraq one night after a snafu with his unit’s supplies. Strickland shook the memory away, removed the cuff from the bed rail, snapped it around Jacklin’s free wrist, then marched him out of the room. He paused to slip aneye mask over Jacklin’s head. Jacklin was reluctant to move after that, so Strickland had to prod him at the base of his skull with his pistol.
Strickland kept Jacklin stumbling along at a reasonable pace until he was satisfied with their position. He said, ‘You have a fifteen-minute head start. Use it well.’ Then he unlocked one cuff and stepped into the empty central area between the four training zones. He took an iPad from the cargo pocket in his pants and looked into its camera to unlock it. Then he used his thumb to prod a button on its screen. A second later a heavy, barred gate came crashing down. It blocked the archway nearer to Jacklin, shutting him in.
The crash of the gate shook Jacklin out of the trance he’d fallen into. He pulled off the mask and stood for a moment, blinking in the dim light. He was shivering. He was hungry. He hadn’t eaten for ten hours. He had no idea where he was. He looked around and saw nothing but sand. A broad swathe of small, fine grains in front of him and on either side. A swooping rise farther ahead, like a wave on a frozen, tan-colored sea. And behind that, dunes. Tall, steep, rising, and disappearing into the gloom.
Jacklin forced himself to think. He wasn’t in a real desert. That was obvious. He was still inside the cave. In the training area where he’d done his assessment when he first joined Strickland Security. He turned around and saw the metal gate. That helped orient him. He was on an exercise. He had screwed up at the storeroom and needed to redeem himself. To prove he was still worthy of his place in the company. Important, but not life or death. Although, after what he’d seen behind that lockeddoor … He pushed the thought aside. It was decision time – he had to at least try. The goal had not been stated, but presumably it was to avoid getting captured for a period of time, or to find a way to escape. The alternative was to stay where he was. Get caught. And presumably get kicked out. He shook his head. He couldn’t believe that a little earlier he’d been complaining to Walker about his situation. Now that he was faced with having to leave, he realized he liked it in the cave. He liked his job. He decided to try to keep it.
He tossed a mental coin and decided to stay low, on the flatter, more even expanse of sand. He tossed another and decided to start out to his left. He moved quickly, scanning the area ahead. He caught sight of something. A shape, vague and brooding, fifty yards away. He kept going, but more slowly. He closed in and realized the shape was a tent. It was tall. Made of pale canvas. Not the backpacking kind. It was more like a mess tent. He crept closer. Made it all the way to the front. He pulled up the flap and looked inside. He saw a slatted wooden table with four folding chairs around it. There was an enamel mug on the table and a camp stove on the ground with a kettle perched on it.
Jacklin shivered. The cold from the storeroom was still deep in his bones. He thought about the kettle. About hot coffee. Maybe even a mug of soup. He pushed the rest of the way into the tent. Reached for the kettle. Then stopped. An alarm was chirping in his brain. He stepped back, took out his wallet, and threw it at the kettle. He hit the target. The kettle toppled. And as it fell, its base erupted. Flames shot out. Smoke billowed. Pieces of thehandle broke off and spun through the air. The explosion wouldn’t have been big enough to kill him, even if he had picked the kettle up. He was fairly sure of that. But it would probably have taken a few fingers off. Maybe his whole hand.
Jacklin shivered again, but he was no longer cold. He retrieved his wallet then backed out of the tent and headed right this time. After a couple of minutes he picked up a set of tire tracks. They were narrow. Almost certainly a bike. He wondered where it was. Whether he could steal it. But the tracks grew fainter and finally disappeared. Jacklin was finding it harder to walk now. His feet were sinking deeper into the sand. It reminded him of the beach. He hated the beach, but at least here there was no sun to burn him. No bugs to bite him. He pressed on and felt himself sinking a little more. Then a lot more. His ankles were buried. So were his legs, halfway to his knees. Then instinct kicked in. He flung himself onto his back, arms and legs spread wide like a starfish. He caught his breath, then started to pull down with his arms and push with his legs in a kind of awkward swimming motion. It was exhausting and extremely inefficient, but he did move. And he didn’t sink. He kept it up for four feet. Six. Then he risked rolling over. He scrambled to his feet and hurried back the way he had come.
Jacklin had regretted a lot of things in his life, but at that moment, nothing more than opening the storeroom door.
Both ventures along the flat sand had proved nearly disastrous, so Jacklin decided on a change of tack. He went up. He thought he could maybe climb all the way over thedunes and escape at the far side. Or that he might find a maintenance hatch in the wall or in the ceiling if he got high enough. He started out walking normally, but pretty soon the incline increased to the point where he had to lean forward and scramble on all fours. The farther he went, the harder the sand became. Soon he was able to walk upright again. He could sense victory. Freedom. He was getting closer. He pushed himself to go faster. To take longer strides.
The sand beneath one foot fell away and Jacklin stumbled to the side. He heard acrunch, then acrack, then the entire top layer of sand sheared away. It was probably three feet thick. It slid, and a crust of sand from above careened down to take its place. More sand poured down from all directions. Jacklin tried to ride it like a scree runner but couldn’t keep his balance. He fell. He rolled and tumbled and spun until he couldn’t tell which way was up. He was inside a roiling cloud of sand. It was in his eyes. His mouth. His nose. He couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. He kept going, lower, faster, growing dizzy, until he slammed into solid ground. The last of the air was knocked out of his lungs. He was choking. It was dark. He was buried. The weight of the sand was pressing him down. He tried to stand but couldn’t. The sand was too heavy. His mind started to drift. He thought he was done. Then, from out of nowhere, a thought hit him. He drew in his arms and legs. He tucked them under himself. Then, with one last giant push, he launched himself toward the sky. His head broke through the surface. He wriggled until his chest was free. He gulped air, then scrambled up and out andclear of the sand. He turned once, twice, until he was sure which way led back to the starting point. Enough was enough. He was giving up.
Jacklin stumbled back toward the entrance. His shoulders were hunched. His arms hung down at his sides. He wasn’t looking where he was going. His steps were erratic. He was weaving one way, then the other, as if he were drunk. Then, as his right foot fell, he felt something give beneath it, hidden by the sand. He heard aclick. He stopped dead. He’d heard that sound before in training. He had stepped on a mine. He told himself it couldn’t be real. It was safe to keep going. It had to be. But his legs wouldn’t move. The sand avalanche had been real. The explosive in the kettle had been real. He didn’t know what to do. He was stuck. He felt the cold fingers of despair take hold of his soul, but he cast them off. Then he heard a harsh, metallic clattering: the sound of salvation. The gate was opening. He looked up and saw Strickland heading toward him.
Strickland was carrying something. He drew closer, then held it up for Jacklin to see. It was a pistol. An unusual one. A CZ 52, from the former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. He said, ‘It’s not pretty, but it’s effective. It’s from my personal collection. I’ve been told it was used in three separate assassination attempts. But that’s beside the point. No long guns for me anymore, obviously. And the beauty of this baby is that it’s chambered in 7.62. Shorter than the round the AK uses, but no one’s going to be able to tell that from the hole it blows in you. So, body or head?’
Jacklin stood staring at the pistol. His mouth hungopen. He didn’t reply, so Strickland shot him in the chest. He watched Jacklin fall, then slipped the gun into his waistband and pulled out his phone to call for help with the clean-up. He finished that conversation, then paused. It struck him that the conflict hadn’t even started yet, and he already had a twenty-fifth KIA. There was no point letting it go to waste.
SEVENTEEN
Reacher was awake before Gilmour appeared. He started the coffee machine and left it wheezing and hissing while he hit the bathroom. He rummaged in the closet until he found a towel. He guessed it had once been blue. Now it was gray, almost transparent, and as rough as sandpaper. He showered quickly, using the shriveled remnants of the only bar of soap he could see, then dried himself, used his fingertips to scrape his hair into some sort of order, dressed in the same set of clothes, and returned to the kitchen.
Gilmour had emerged from his bedroom. He was wearing an Orioles shirt with a pair of baggy orange shorts and was stomping around, grumpy and disoriented. He grunted a half-hearted greeting, refused Reacher’s offer of coffee, and managed a grudging apology for the lack of breakfast food. Then he retreated to his room. Hereappeared five minutes later dressed in the previous day’s work clothes, though now he had an ID card slung around his neck on a royal-blue lanyard.
Gilmour led the way to his rental car then drove in silence to his regular apartment. When they arrived, he explained that they needed to switch to his personal vehicle because it had a permit for the port’s employee parking lot affixed to the windshield. Reacher didn’t respond. He had no need for permits, for parking or anything else, and he was happy about that. It was as if Gilmour had picked up on his line of thought, because as they climbed into the second car, he said, ‘Do you have a car stashed away somewhere? Or a truck? I can see you more in a truck. Or a decommissioned Humvee.’
Reacher shook his head. ‘My days of riding in Humvees are long gone. I don’t need a truck. And I don’t want a car.’
‘So how do you get around?’
‘I take the bus. I hitch rides. I fly, on occasion, if there’s no way to avoid it.’
