Page 7 of Exit Strategy
‘No.’
‘So how come he didn’t send you to the hospital, too?’
‘He said he wanted me to tell you what had happened. And to make sure none of us cross paths with him again.’
Kelleher’s top lip curled into a sneer. ‘Oh, our paths are going to cross. You can take that to the bank. No one steals ten grand out of my pocket and walks away.’
‘I told him that. He said he wasn’t stealing it. He said he was going to return it to the idiots we took it from.’
‘Like hell. Who would do that? No way. He took it. The only question is who he’s working for. We need to know. ’Cause this needs to be nipped in the bud right now.’
‘He said he’s not working for anyone.’
‘More BS. All right. This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to make some calls. See if anyone admits to hiring this guy. Or has an idea who did hire him. Or even got hit by him. You get the word out to everyone we know on the street. Spread the guy’s description. Anyone spots him, I want to know. Like, yesterday.’
Reacher hit the ground shoulder first, rolled forward, then sprang to his feet. The room he had landed in was empty. There was no furniture. The floorboards were bare. There was nothing on the walls. No coverings on the three unbroken windows that faced the street. No door in the frame. Just a thick coat of dust everywhere and a smattering of pigeon droppings in one corner.
The doorway led to a kind of gallery that spanned the width of the building. It gave access to four more rooms – presumably offices – on one side and offered a view of the whole storage area below on the other. A staircase sat in the center, jutting out at ninety degrees, with flights that switched back on themselves to correspond with the height of each floor.
Reacher checked the other rooms on the same level. They were all empty, too. Stripped bare. Even the radiators had been taken, based on the stubs of copper pipe that had been cut off a couple of inches shy of the floor. He took the stairs to the third floor. The space was divided in half there, forming a pair of broader rectangular rooms. Originally for keeping files or records, Reacher guessed, given the age of the building. Next he took the stairs down to the warehouse itself. There were no goods there now. The floor was just a latticework ofscuffs and scrapes carved by decades of pallets and containers being hauled in and out with varying degrees of care. The shapes were barely visible in the subdued light that filtered through from the empty offices.
Reacher took in the entirety of the space, calculating angles and possibilities, then stood with the staircase between him and the entrance to the first loading bay. The one with the serviceable lock. He nodded to himself. The staircase gave good cover, and there was no light source behind it to create a silhouette. That was where he would wait if he were planning a covert rendezvous. He figured the guy who’d left the note would do the same. That only left two questions. What kind of weapon would the guy be carrying? And how twitchy would his trigger finger be?
Reacher made his way beneath the overhang formed by the second-floor offices and crossed to the inside of the main door. It was kept closed by three planks held up by pairs of solid metal brackets. Reacher took hold of the highest plank. It was heavy. Its surface was hard and shiny. Exposure to years of polluted city air had left it feeling more like iron than wood, and time had wedged it fast in place. He pushed up at the end, but it didn’t shift an inch. He tried the center one instead. It was tight, too, but it did move. Just a little. Reacher kept shoving and straining. It raised another inch. Then another. Then it popped out of the left bracket. Reacher moved and wrestled it free of the other. He set the plank down and turned his attention to the lowest one. It gave way much more easily, one end then the other. Reacher turned it and placed one of its corners on the ground, then raisedit at an angle until its narrow edge was in contact with the bottom corner of the highest plank. He crouched a little, got his shoulder under it, and tried to straighten his legs. Nothing happened. He kept up the pressure for another twenty seconds, and suddenly the bracket gave up the fight. The left side pivoted up at a crazy angle. He shifted the plank to the right and reapplied the leverage. The plank groaned against its bracket, slid upward, then broke loose and shot up into the air. Reacher stood back. He let it clatter to the ground, then gathered the fallen planks and stacked them on the right-hand side of the doorframe. He needed to be sure he wouldn’t trip on them in the dark. Then he pulled the ancient door open a crack, made sure no one was watching, stepped outside, closed the door, and started walking back toward the center of the city.
SIX
When Morgan Strickland bought the Kinsella limestone mine, twenty miles northwest of the city, people thought he was crazy. Geological surveys showed that the place was pretty much tapped out. And even if any limestone was left inside, no one wanted it anymore. You could barely give it away. Demand had tanked in recent years and industry experts predicted that nothing was going to change the outlook. They expected that its long downward spiral would continue right up to its final, inevitable collapse. But none of that mattered to Strickland. He wasn’t planning on digging anything up. And he didn’t intend to sell any raw materials. He was interested in something else altogether: the cavernous hundred-acre space that had been created as the limestone was extracted.
Aside from the access ramp the cavern was at aconsistent level seventy feet below the surface. The way it had been excavated left a series of uniform wide-open spaces between the circular pillars that supported the ceiling. The pillars were substantial. Sixteen feet in diameter. Bigger than necessary. Bigger than they would have been if computers had been involved in the design. Their bulk combined to ensure the place was secured against natural threats. And human threats, too. It was protected on all sides by residual seams of limestone, which is six times stronger than concrete. It naturally stayed at a stable temperature, sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, which made it cost-effective to maintain. And it was completely dry, so vehicles and equipment, plus weapons and ammunition, could be stored indefinitely without fear of degradation. But Strickland didn’t regard the place as just an underground warehouse. He saw a much greater potential. The opportunity to build something no other private military contractor had. Or could have. A state-of-the-art training and assessment facility impervious to infiltration. Or espionage. Or sabotage. All in all, the cavern complex was the ideal base for his business – Strickland Security Solutions. Currently the seventh-largest private military contractor in the US. Soon to be the largest, if Strickland had his way. And already the most profitable.
The same time Reacher was heading back to town, Strickland was walking through an area that was usually full of armored vehicles. He was on his way to a walled-off space at the far end of a bay. It was nominally his office but more often than not he slept there when he was stateside. He fished a key from his pocket but before he could work the lock he heard footsteps approaching. Two sets.Both moving fast. He adjusted the patch that covered his left eye – he had lost it to an IED, along with his left arm, when he was serving in Iraq in ’03 – then turned to see who was coming. Two men hurried into view. Steve McClaren, the operations director, who was tall and rangy with a freshly shaved head. And David Moyes, VP of procurement, who was his physical opposite: short and stout with gray hair and a matching straggly beard.
Strickland waited until they were close enough to shake hands, then said, ‘Steve – everything squared away?’
McClaren nodded. ‘Everything and everyone is in place in Turkey. The operating base is a mile from the border with Armenia. The facilities aren’t great, though. I’m hearing a few grumbles from the operators. I’m hoping we’ll get the green light very soon. We’re good to go the moment we do.’
‘Outstanding. Anything else?’
Moyes cleared his throat and said, ‘Sorry to sound contrary, but I’m hoping the green light doesn’t come so soon. Issues with the accommodations aside, it turns out we have supply problems in two key areas.’
Deep creases ran the width of Strickland’s forehead. He said, ‘Which areas?’
‘The upgrades you authorized at the last strategy session. Better body armor for the operators and hard-side kits for the Humvees.’
McClaren turned to Moyes and said, ‘Wait – we don’t have those yet? Why am I just hearing about this? I was told everything had been delivered pre-deployment.’
Moyes said, ‘Two consignments arrived on schedule, yes. And the order numbers corresponded. But when wechecked the contents, half of the armor and a third of the Humvee kits were missing. My guys are chasing the suppliers, but so far they’re just running in circles.’
McClaren’s face had turned scarlet. ‘That’s not good enough. We all know what happened last time out in Haiti, three months ago. Twenty-four men, lost. At least twenty of those deaths could have been avoided with better equipment. If this comes down to cost …’
Strickland stepped between them. He shook his head and said, ‘No. It doesn’t.’ He gestured to his eye patch and his empty shirt sleeve. ‘I – of all people – don’t give a rat’s ass about the cost of protective equipment. I signed off on the purchase orders the minute they hit my desk. Leave this with me. I’ll take care of it. Now, Steve, in the meantime, what’s the status with our latest class of recruits? They ready for their final assessment? We need them to be if they’re going to join the deployment this time around.’
McClaren shook his head. ‘The assessment is going ahead tomorrow, 10:00 hours, as planned. Whether they’re ready is a whole other question. Where did you get these jackasses? I was promised vets, not donkeys.’
‘They’ve all been through Basic at the minimum, is my understanding.’
‘Been through? As in all the way through? As in passed? Or have we been stiffed with a bunch of washouts?’
