Page 73 of Exit Strategy
Reacher said, ‘I’ll find Strickland and tell him not to sign.’
‘What if he won’t listen?’
‘I can be very persuasive.’
‘How will you find him? Do you really want to search this whole place again? And what if he’s snuck out of here?’
‘I don’t need to find him. I know where he’ll be atten tomorrow. Right here, ready for his meeting with Hewson. I can wait for him to come to me.’
Kasselwood said, ‘I have something to entertain you while you wait. Look at this.’ She set the iPad at an angle on the desk so that Reacher and Gilmour could see it, then hit Play. ‘They take videos of the recruits doing their assessments. And they areterrible.’
The screen showed a recruit tiptoeing into an empty garage. There was clutter strewn all around. The guy was looking left and right as he moved, but his pistol was pointing at the floor the whole time. He crept forward, looked the wrong way, and stumbled into a stack of paint cans. The stack collapsed. The cans crashed down and rolled away. The guy jumped and pulled the trigger. And shot his own foot. His whole boot turned scarlet. Fortunately for him, he had only been issued a paint gun.
Gilmour said, “Poor guy. He really put theassinto assessment.”
Kasselwood said, ‘I wonder what he’s doing now. Flipping burgers somewhere, maybe.’ She leaned over to stop the recording, but it ran on longer than when she’d watched it on her own. A grade box appeared, with a green 70 and the wordPASS. ‘No way. He passed? That’s not possible. I mean, what kind of operation are they running here?’ She picked the iPad up and started running through its menus. Then she leaned forward. A frown covered her face and she set the iPad back on the desk. ‘This is bad. This is really bad. Look. This is the grading history screen. The system originally passed the guy automatically. Then someone called S. McClarenoverwrote that score and failed him. Then Strickland reinstated the passing score.’
Gilmour said, ‘That’s weird. Strickland’s the boss. You wouldn’t think he’d want screwups in his company.’
‘He would.’ Reacher frowned. The tendons in his neck stood out like steel hawsers. ‘A KIA is worth a million bucks to him now, screwup or not. And a screwup is more likely to wind up KIA.’
‘Oh God.’ Gilmour looked like he’d taken a gulp of rancid milk. ‘He’s deliberately picking guys who’ll get killed so that he’ll get paid more. That’s disgusting.’
Kasselwood said, ‘The guy we saw isn’t even the worst one. Look at this.’ She selected another video and set it playing. It showed a guy sidle up to a door inside a house. He went to open it but instead of pulling, he pushed. He struggled with it for a few seconds before he realized his mistake. Then he overcompensated. He pulled so hard that the door hit him in the face. He fell down, dropped his gun, then scrambled up and ran away without stopping to retrieve it.
Gilmour shook his head. ‘Are these all from the same class?’
Kasselwood said, ‘Looks like it.’
‘Where do they find these guys? It’s like a clown show. And how do they get accepted into their program? These last two – they must have written unbelievable application letters.’
‘Let’s see. Their whole history is on here.’ Kasselwood swiped through a few screens, then she looked away and shook her head. She said, ‘I can’t even …’
Gilmour took the iPad, read what Kasselwood hadseen, then put it down on the desk. ‘Holy hell.’ He turned to Reacher. ‘These guys didn’t apply to join the program. They were invited. Strickland wrote to them. Guess what his pitch was?’
Reacher didn’t wait for him to continue. He took the iPad and read for himself. ‘Strickland was offering them a second chance. All these kids had tried to join the army and all of them had been kicked out of Basic.’ Reacher slammed the side of his fist into the desk, denting its metal surface.
Kasselwood said, ‘I’ve had it with him. Strickland. No more guilt. He’s disgusting.’
Reacher was working hard to control his breathing. ‘He is. But there’s another problem here. How did Strickland know who had failed Basic?’
Gilmour said, ‘Someone must have given him a list.’
Kasselwood said, ‘Sold him a list. And I bet I know who.’
Reacher said, ‘Hewson. I’ll confirm it when I catch up with Strickland. If we’re right, they’re both going to have a very bad day.’
Kasselwood said, ‘Hewson’s going to have a very bad day indeed. If they’re in bed together to that degree, you can bet it was Hewson who squashed the warning I sent from the Agency. Who sent the thugs to cut me.’
Vardanyan jumped up off the cot. ‘Guys! I think there’s a problem.’
Kasselwood said, ‘What is it?’
Vardanyan said, ‘I was alone in here for a while this afternoon. Strickland left me when he went outside to talk to the guy who ambushed us at the port. I stood and stared at the wall. That one.’ She pointed to the wallbehind the desk. ‘It just hit me. Before it was blank. Look at it now.’
There was a poster on the wall. A four-by-three representation of Strickland Security’s emblem, which was a circle with an eagle and some arrows and a globe, which looked to Reacher like a crude mash-up of the Army’s and the Marine Corps’s. It was held up by strips of masking tape at each corner. The shiny paper was fighting them, trying to curl, like it had recently been rolled up. Reacher took hold of one edge and tore it down. Behind it there was a hole in the wall. It was square with relatively neat edges. The cavity behind it was empty.
Gilmour said, ‘You cut a hole. Stash something. Replace the piece of drywall. Tape the edges. Plaster. Paint. No one would ever know it’s there. And if you need back whatever you stashed, it takes two seconds to get it.’
