Page 5 of Exit Strategy
The note Reacher had found in his pocket wasn’t intended for him. That was clear. The guy at the coffee shop had planted it on the wrong man.Bring what I’m owedimplied a degree of familiarity with the guy’s situation that Reacher did not have. Reacher had no idea how the guy could have mistaken him for someone who did, but he figured he had a more urgent question to answer: what to do about the note. He didn’t know the guy who had planted it. He didn’t owe him anything. He hadn’t asked to get involved. So there was nothing to stop him from dumping the note in the trash and getting on with his day.
Except …
The note did make it sound like the guy was in serious trouble. If he were crying out for help and this message was the key to him getting it, Reacher felt it was only right to let him know it had gone astray. He would want someone to do that for him if the shoe were on the other foot. Plus returning the note shouldn’t be difficult. It shouldn’t take long. It wouldn’t stop him from catching the band he’d come to town to see. And most important it shouldn’t stand in the way of his plan to leave town without delay.
Except …
An abandoned warehouse at night could be a smartplace for a rendezvous. Especially for someone who was in danger. Who was wanting to fly under the radar. But it could also be the perfect venue for an ambush. Which made it the kind of location that Reacher usually made a point of avoiding, even when he wasn’t the intended victim.
Reacher inspected the torn edges of the piece of paper the note was written on. He checked both sides. He was looking for traces of a letterhead or a logo or an address that could tell him where the paper – and therefore the guy – had come from. He found nothing. He held the note up to one of the ceiling lights in the hardware store, searching for a watermark. He found nothing there, either. He laid the note flat on his palm and gazed along its length, hoping to see the imprint of whatever had been written on the previous sheet, but the paper was smooth. It held no clues. Nothing to tell Reacher where he could intercept the guy ahead of the rendezvous at the warehouse. So he was left with the same two options he had started with. Trash the note, or try to return it and risk walking into a trap.
The smart thing to do would be to walk away. Reacher knew that. He had no skin in the game. No obligation to help a total stranger. But he did have a curious nature. He couldn’t help wondering what this guy must have done to be in fear for his life. Where he had honed the sleight of hand needed to slip the note into Reacher’s pocket without getting caught. And on top of that his eyes kept getting drawn back to the final scrawled word at the bottom of the page.Please. Something about the way it was written resonated with him. It tipped the scale away fromtrap,making it feel more like a genuine plea. Not the kind of thing Reacher found it easy to walk away from.
Reacher folded the note and tucked it back into his pocket. He figured that an abandoned warehouse was likely to be dark so he looked for a display of flashlights. He selected one that would fit in his pocket then returned to the register, paid for his items, and asked the clerk for directions to Argyle and Horseferry. Then he left the store and started walking, more purposefully than before. He had time before the concert was due to start so he figured it wouldn’t hurt to head to the address stated in the note. Take a look at the place. Get a sense of what level of risk was involved, then make a final decision.
Nathan Gilmour’s next destination was a cramped third-floor walk-up apartment in a plain, unrestored building. It was a quarter of a mile away from the coffee shop but it took him two hours to reach it. He started out walking. He meandered along for half a dozen blocks, crossing the street at random intervals and using the reflections in storefront windows to see if anyone was following him. No one seemed to be. He dodged into an alleyway, pressed his back against the rough brick wall, and waited to see if anyone turned in after him. No one did. No one even glanced in his direction. He came back out and hailed a passing cab. He gave the driver the name of a bar. It was a ten-minute drive. Gilmour paid the fare in cash, entered the bar, and made his way straight to an exit at the rear that he knew led to another alley. He hurried to the next street. Walked another ten blocks. Hailed another cab, and this time he asked the driver to take himto a car rental office. He used a Delaware license with a fake name and a bundle of cash to pay for a Chevy Malibu for a week. The car was midsize. Its contours were bland. It was an insipid silver color. It was totally boring in Gilmour’s eyes. But that was the whole point. On the road it was as close to invisible as he could get.
Gilmour parked a block away from the apartment building and sat behind the wheel for ten minutes pretending to look at his phone. When he was happy that no one had followed him he walked to the building’s main entrance, let himself in, and took the stairs to the third floor. There were two apartments leading off the landing and neither had a name or a number on its door. There were no identifying marks whatsoever. Gilmour liked it that way. He had no idea how his neighbor felt about it. He had never met them. He liked that, too.
Gilmour worked the lock, which was stiff with age and a lack of maintenance, pushed the door open, and stepped into a narrow hallway. The space was dark and the air was stale and heavy with dust. Gilmour nodded to himself. That meant he could be reasonably sure no one had been inside snooping around. Not recently, anyway. He checked that his go bag was in its usual spot on the floor and continued to the apartment’s main room. It had one window with no kind of a view – just the crumbling bricks on the side of the next building – but that didn’t matter to Gilmour because he kept the drapes permanently closed. He flipped the light switch. There was a small kitchen area in one corner, which was adequate for anyone whose interest in food extended no further than brewing coffee and reheating frozen dinners in an ancient microwave.There was a dining table with two chairs. And a black leather couch with splits in two of its three cushions. Gilmour lowered himself onto the one cushion that wasn’t ripped, reached for the TV remote, then paused. He felt safe for the first time since leaving the coffee shop. He couldn’t go back to his office. He knew that. He couldn’t go home. But this place – threadbare and unkempt as it may have been – was secure. He had started renting it a year ago when it became clear that access to a bolt-hole was turning into more than a luxury. He paid cash, as far in advance as he could afford. He used a false name. And he made sure that no one else knew about it. He’d only ever let its existence slip once, to one person. A woman. It was in a very special circumstance so he wasn’t worried that she would mention it. Even if she remembered or realized the significance, there was no way she could ever breathe a word.
Zack Weaver checked his phone for the fiftieth time that afternoon. Was there signal? Still yes. Was there a text from Harvey Jones? Still no.
Weaver forced himself to stop pacing in front of the desk in the room he used as an office in his home in Fells Point, which felt like a different world from Gilmour’s apartment. He crossed the room and flopped down in the beat-up leather lounge chair in the corner by the door and balanced the phone on its arm so he could see the screen. Another minute ticked over on the display. Then another.
The anger that had been boiling Weaver’s blood ever since Jones failed to check in on time was starting to cool.It was giving way to fear. The job Weaver had sent Jones to do was simple: Scare some sense into Gilmour. Make sure he knocked it off with his911 emergencyBS and held up his side of the bargain. And Gilmour was so paranoid and flaky that a Boy Scout in a Halloween costume could get it done, let alone a giant like Jones.
At first Weaver assumed that Jones had taken care of business and then wandered off to do whatever it is out-of-work actors do with their time and had just forgotten to send his report. So Weaver had prompted Jones via text. A whole string of them, one after another. A dozen in total. A single message Jones might have missed. But twelve? That seemed unlikely. Something else must be going on.
Weaver knew that Gilmour was ex-military. If Jones had spooked him – and the whole point of sending Jones was that he was so scary-looking – Gilmour could have overreacted. Gotten into a fight with Jones. Killed him, even. Or if Gilmour had caused a scene in public they both could have gotten arrested. And that would be worse. There was no way either of them would stay silent for long.
Weaver moved back to his desk and fired up his laptop. He called up the local news station’s website and right away had his answer. The latest story detailed how a local man had collapsed and died on a city sidewalk a few minutes before noon that day. A heart attack was suspected. Not foul play. No mention was made of a third party being involved, which was good. No name was given, either – presumably next of kin had to be informed before that could happen – butthe time corresponded and the location was a block from the coffee shop where Jones was supposed to meet Gilmour. Weaver switched to a social media site and checked which hashtags were trending. He clicked on one that sounded relevant and a photograph popped up. It was blurred and poorly framed – obviously taken on a phone, probably by someone getting jostled by a crowd – and it showed a pair of paramedics trying to lift a man’s body onto a gurney at the edge of a sidewalk. The body was inert. The man was huge. Weaver couldn’t see his face, but given his height and bulk, there was no doubt in his mind. It was Jones. The only question that remained was whether he had been leaving the coffee shop after dealing with Gilmour, or if he had still been on his way to meet him. If he’d been leaving, then there was no problem. The message would have been delivered. But if he’d still been on his way, Gilmour would think he’d been stood up. Nothing good could come of that. The news station’s website said Jones had collapsed a few minutes before noon. That was worrying because he’d been set to meet Gilmour at noon. Worrying, but not definite. The time frame was not precise enough to draw a solid conclusion. So Weaver switched to theSun’s website and found a similar version of the story. The newspaper didn’t name the victim, either, but gave the time of the incident as 11:48 a.m. A date stamp on the photo that accompanied the story said the same thing. 11:48. Twelve minutes before the meeting was due to start. A substantial margin. Not what Weaver wanted to see.
Weaver switched off the phone he’d used to text Jonesand took out the battery. He would need to destroy the phone as a matter of urgency but in the meantime he didn’t want the police to be able to track it if they decided Jones’s death was suspicious. Next, he took out the phone he used to communicate with Gilmour, pulled up his number, and hit Call. He got dumped straight into voicemail so he hung up without leaving a message. Instead he texted:
My guy had an accident on his way to meet you.
Not deliberate!
I still want to help. Same time / place tomorrow?
Lmk …
Weaver sent the message and waited for a reply. None came. Five minutes crawled past. Gilmour still didn’t respond, so Weaver pulled out a third phone and typed out another message. The reply came back right away:Make it quick. I have a patient in two minutes.
Weaver said, ‘Nathan Gilmour. If he thought he’d been hung out to dry, what would he do?’
‘Depends. Why would he believe that?’
‘I sent a guy to meet with him, but it looks like he didn’t show. Seems like he had a heart attack. Dropped dead on the sidewalk a block or so away, twelve minutes ahead of the meet. I tried to reach out to Gilmour to explain, but I can’t get ahold of him.’
‘Then he’s going to run, if he hasn’t already.’
‘You sure?’
‘I remember him being as jumpy as a box of frogs. And he’s already spooked or he wouldn’t have sent the SOS. Ifhe thinks you’ve abandoned him or betrayed him, there’s no way he’ll stay.’
‘Even without his money? He wouldn’t stick around one more day if he thought he had a chance to get it?’
