Page 76 of Exit Strategy
Gilmour had moved across to the Tesla and was holding the rear door open. Hewson climbed in. Gilmour got into the driver’s seat and Reacher looped around to the passenger side. The car purred almost silently down to the mine’s main level. Its harsh blue-white lights bleached the rough rock surface as they passed. Gilmour took it easy on the incline, continued straight for a moment, then swung ninety degrees to the right.
Hewson said, ‘We’re not going to Strickland’s office?’
Reacher said, ‘Not today. We’re using a different room.’
‘Why?’
‘We have a video camera set up in there. That way, if you’re satisfied with what Violeta Vardanyan has to say, we can record the new video testimony right away.’
Hewson nodded again. He said, ‘That’s good. I like efficiency. Your boss knows that.’
The storeroom door was standing ajar. Gilmour stopped the Tesla near it and climbed out. Hewson got out of the back seat. Reacher moved around the rear of the car and waited behind him. Gilmour gestured for Hewson to go first.
Hewson pushed the door, took half a step into the storeroom, and saw Kasselwood. He froze. Reacher shoved him in the back. He staggered inside, dropped his briefcase, and almost fell onto the bed Vardanyan had been in the day before. Strickland’s remains were in it now. Blood had soaked into the sheets and dried, tracing a crusty black outline around his ruined corpse.
Gilmour followed Reacher inside and closed the door behind him.
Reacher picked up Hewson’s briefcase. He gestured to all the dead bodies lying in the beds. He said, ‘What would you say they’re worth? Twenty-six million?’
Hewson’s eyes were hopping from pillow to pillow, death mask to death mask. His mind was frozen. He had no concept of what he was seeing. He was silent for a moment, then stammered, ‘I … I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is that Morgan? What the hell happened to him? Who are all these other guys? Who killed them?’
‘Twenty-six million. You agreed to the contract. You know the price.’
‘No.’ Hewson held out his hands, palms facing out, and shook his head wildly. ‘I never signed that. I wasn’t going to. It was Morgan’s idea. I never agreed.’
Reacher lifted the case. He said, ‘So if I look in here I won’t find a freshly signed copy?’
Hewson said, ‘No. Well, yes. But’s that’s for show. It’s a negotiating position. I was stringing Morgan along. I was never going to give it to him.’
‘But you did sell him the list. The Basic Training washouts.’
Hewson didn’t answer.
Kasselwood said, ‘I have a question. When I flagged up the fact that Strickland was trying to start an unjust war, my report landed on your desk, didn’t it? You buried it. And then you sent a bunch of guys to hurt me.’
Hewson’s stepped back. His mouth was open but he didn’t speak.
Kasselwood said, ‘After everything that happened in the sandbox? I never told a soul. You know that? So I think I deserve the courtesy of an answer now. A truthful answer.’
Hewson’s voice was quiet. He was starting to shiver. ‘I told them to scare you. That’s all. Never to hurt you. I’m sorry about what they did to you.’
‘So make it up to me. Answer the question. You sold Strickland the list?’
Hewson threw his hands up. He said, ‘You’re really pissed about those guys? You’re looking at it all wrong.They were losers. Dropouts. Their lives were in the toilet. We were offering them a second chance.Offering. They didn’t have to take it.’
Reacher said, ‘So it was all about the second chance?’
Hewson said, ‘Right.’ His eyes were flitting from corpse to corpse again, homing in briefly on each visible fatal wound.
Reacher took out his gun. He racked a shell into the chamber then released the magazine. He put that in his pocket and tossed the gun onto one of the empty beds. He said, ‘How about I give you a second chance? I’m going to count to three. If you get to the gun first, you can shoot me. If you don’t … well, you get the picture. One. Two.’
Hewson didn’t wait for three. He tore his gaze away from a body that had been shot in the face and threw himself forward, going for the gun.
Reacher threw himself the other way, going for Hewson. His left fist slammed into Hewson’s chest. It had all his strength behind it. All his weight. All his momentum. It caved in Hewson’s ribs like they’d been hit with an anvil. The force crushed his heart. It lifted his body clear off the ground. It flew back, landed, and slid along the floor until the top of Hewson’s head smashed into the wheel at the base of one of the metal bed legs.
One of Hewson’s guards was sitting in the town car with the passenger door open, listening to the radio, when Reacher stepped from the entrance to the mine. The other guard was standing, smoking a cigarette, tracing a deep red stain on the driveway with his foot.
Reacher said, ‘Guys, I have a question from your boss.He wants to know how much of your share you’re willing to split with Gilmour and me.’
