Page 48 of Exit Strategy
There were no file cabinets in the office, so Reacher moved around behind the desk. It was a giant thing, way too big for the space. It was made of mahogany with green leather set into the top. The leather was scratchedand scuffed and worn all the way through in places. The wood was intricately carved, but chunks had been knocked out, and large sections were dented and scarred. The old thing had seen better days, even before Weaver’s blood and brains got sprayed across it.
The desk had one large drawer in the center section and three in each pedestal. The lower one on each side was tall enough to hang files in. Each side had a keyhole at the top. And lying on the floor, roughly in the center, was a bunch of keys. The fob was shaped like a baseball bat, three inches long, and there were at least a dozen keys attached to the ring. Reacher glanced across to check that Gilmour still had his gloves on, then beckoned him over. Gilmour hurried around, then looked at Reacher and said, ‘Where do you want to start?’
Reacher pointed to the right. He said, ‘There. More scratches around the keyhole. He used it more than the other side.’
Gilmour tried the bottom right-hand drawer. It slid open easily. The inside was divided into three sections. Each divider had a handwritten label attached to it. At the front,On Deck.In the center,At Bat.And at the back,Struck Out.Behind each divider was a bunch of files. Maybe twenty at the front, all pretty thin. Two in the center. And at least twenty more at the back. Gilmour took one from the front section. A name was scribbled on the front. In it there was just one sheet of paper. He held it up so Reacher could read it at the same time. It was written by hand. The same name was at the top, followed by what they both guessed was a summary from Dr Martin’s full file. The subject was a local judge. He had startedseeing Dr Martin due to his attraction to a certain kind of girl. A kind he described as beinga little on the young side. Gilmour snorted with disgust and shoved the file back into its space. He pulled out another. This one gave details of a businessman who liked to expose himself in the gardens near the statue of Mayor Schaefer. Gilmour sighed and put that one back, too.
Reacher said, ‘Move on to the central section. Those should be the live ones. You and Patten should be in one of them. Arlon James, too. See if Kasselwood’s in the other.’
Gilmour pulled the first file from the center. A company name was written on the outside of this one.Maryland Wholesale Fashion,LLC. Inside were summary pages for three people. A welder. A fitness instructor. And a truck driver. Gilmour scanned each one, then said, ‘What do you think? Someone’s ripping off a bunch of clothes? Seems a little boring.’
Reacher said, ‘Very boring. Assuming clothes are all the company sells. Maybe they store something else in their warehouse.’
‘I kind of hope they do.’ Gilmour switched to the second file.Safe Harbor Retirement Homes.There were four summaries inside this one. A nurse. A taxi driver. A doctor at an inner-city practice. And a claims clerk at an insurance company. ‘It’s not hard to connect these dots. But here’s my question. There’s no mention of Kasselwood, or us. Why would she take both of our files?’
‘Maybe she didn’t. Check the rest of the desk. Maybe there’s more.’
Gilmour looked in each drawer in turn. There were noother files, but he did find three cellphones, all switched off. He lined them up on the green leather, taking care to avoid the smears of drying blood, and said, ‘Burners, would be my guess. Let’s see what Weaver used them for.’ He picked up the phone on the left and prodded a button on its side. The screen came to life after a moment, and an image of a numeric keypad appeared. Gilmour ignored it. He carried the phone to Weaver’s body and held it near his face. The phone didn’t respond. Gilmour straightened up and said, ‘Okay, he had Face ID disabled. No problem. I can get around the PIN number. Give me two minutes. I’ll check his computer as well. There were no dates in those files. Maybe they’re old. Who knows? Maybe he moved into the twenty-first century.’
‘Go ahead,’ Reacher said. ‘I’ll try the rest of the house. Maybe he kept the newest files somewhere else.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Steve McClaren knocked on Morgan Strickland’s door, but this time he waited for his boss to reply before he stepped into his office.
Strickland was sitting behind his desk, fumbling with his phone. He looked up and said, ‘Give me one second, Steve. I’m trying to send a text.’
McClaren watched Strickland struggling. He could see that his thumb was spending a lot of time on the Delete key. It was like Strickland had read his mind. He said, ‘God, I hate doing this. It would be bad enough with two hands …’
McClaren said, ‘You don’t have to type it yourself anymore, you know. You can dictate it. Make Siri do the work for you.’
Strickland shook his head. ‘I don’t trust that stuff – these virtual assistants. I don’t get why anyone usesthem. It’s like voluntarily putting a bug in your pocket. They say the system isn’t listening all the time, but if that’s true, how come they keep subpoenaing the recordings in murder trials?’
‘You just don’t like other people – or things – helping you.’
Strickland shrugged. ‘What can I say? I carry my own water. I don’t even like that predictive text thing. And don’t get me started on spellcheck …’
‘You can turn that off, you know.’
‘I do know. And I have turned it off.’
‘Good. Now, listen, Morgan, I came to apologize. I let my temper get away from me earlier, after the assessments. I’m sorry.’
Strickland put his phone down. ‘There’s no need to feel sorry, Steve. Your heart was in the right place. I know that. And to be honest, you made some good points. Those recruits weren’t great. We should be looking for better. But they’re not necessarily completely useless. So how about this. We set up a new unit for people who are stuck at that kind of level, and we use it to target a different market segment. I don’t know what, yet. Something less demanding. Private security, maybe. Something where we can build a whole new revenue stream and keep from having all our eggs in one basket.’
‘Interesting. I hadn’t thought of that. We should explore the idea, at least.’
‘Good. Let’s get our heads together. Brainstorm it. See what we can come up with. It’s getting late today, so how about tomorrow morning? 09:00?’
‘I thought Violeta Vardanyan was coming in at ten. Will that give us enough time?’
Strickland shook his head. ‘Vardanyan’s got caught up somewhere. She’s delayed a little bit.’
‘What about the meeting with Hewson on Thursday?’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem. She should be here by then, give or take half an hour. I’ll maybe bump the meeting an hour or two, just to be safe. I don’t want to postpone any further than that, though. Hewson’s flaky enough as it is.’
‘There are other people at the Pentagon, you know. Ambitious people. I get that you and Hewson have history together, but if he starts holding us back …’
