Page 6 of Exit Strategy
‘Maybe. It’s possible, I guess. But a guy like him could lose his nerve at any moment. So don’t wait till tomorrow. Go after him today. Right now. And Zack? No more actors, okay? Use the real thing this time. It’ll cost more, but you can’t afford to screw this up. We still need updates from Gilmour. If the job goes south because the client doesn’t have the latest information …’
‘I get it. So where would Gilmour hide?’
The screen was static for a moment, then:He has a safe house. A little apartment he pays for with cash. He thinks no one knows about it. I’ll text you the address.
FIVE
Nathan Gilmour changed the TV channel for the twentieth time in two minutes. He couldn’t find a single thing to watch that interested him. Or that didn’t actively annoy him. Not sports. Not drama. Not cooking. Certainly not home improvement shows. The only saving grace was that he wasn’t paying for the garbage the cable company piped into his apartment. The first week he rented the place he had illegally tapped into the building-wide system. His main motivation was to avoid having his name or credit card attached to the apartment’s address in any kind of corporate database, but saving a few bucks was a welcome bonus. Especially given how broke he had been back then. And how badly the content still sucked.
Gilmour stuck it out for another five minutes then nixed the TV and the cable box. He got up off the couch,changed into some black clothes, grabbed his go bag, and headed for the door. He knew he should get over himself and stay. He would be safer off the street and out of sight. There was no doubt about it. But he figured there was no point in staying physically safe if the price he had to pay for that was losing his mind. He decided that as long as no one was watching the building or his rental car he would drive around until it was time to head to the rendezvous with the big guy from the coffee shop. He had no particular route in mind. No specific destination. He just craved the sensation of forward momentum. The feeling reminded him of something an old friend used to say. That when she was stressed she couldn’t stay still. She had to be constantly on the move, like a shark. He had thought she was being overly dramatic at the time. Now he could appreciate what she meant. For the next few hours he would be a shark, too. If the traffic cooperated. And no one killed him.
It took Reacher half an hour to walk from the hardware store to the abandoned warehouse. It sat on a corner lot with plenty of parking bays out front – all empty except for the weeds growing out of the cracks in the asphalt – and a row of four loading docks spaced out along the left-hand wall. The front part of the building was surprisingly grand. It was three stories high, all stone and red brick, and there was even some stained glass clinging on in the higher floors’ windows. It could have belonged to a movie theater, Reacher thought. Or a museum or concert hall. He guessed it had been built in the days before just-in-time logistics, when torrents of merchandise wereflowing into the country via the port and people believed that having supplies of valuable goods on hand was a good idea. Reacher scanned the area for security cameras. He couldn’t see any, so he tried the main door. It was jammed solid. The ground-floor windows were all boarded up tight. There was no way in from that angle. Not without a sledgehammer or a crowbar.
The rear portion of the building was a whole different story, aesthetically. It didn’t match the façade at all. Its walls were made of cinder block. Beige paint was peeling off them in long ragged strips. Scarred metal shutters covered the entrances to the loading bays, and the shallow-pitched roof looked to be covered with sheets of corrugated iron. The place must have been reconfigured when standardized shipping containers became a thing, Reacher guessed. The storage area had likely been rebuilt at the lowest possible cost, but the façade was retained because it was still functional. Or the owners liked it. Or were obliged by the city to keep it. Or wanted to save the money it would cost to replace.
Reacher started down the side of the building. There were no windows, and the roll-down shutters over the loading bays were all padlocked. The locks on the farthest three from the road were rusted solid but the one closest to the front was newer. It was a stout-looking item. Still shiny. Almost certainly still serviceable. If it was unlocked this would be the obvious way into the building. Reacher figured that the guy from the coffee shop must have a key. He was likely planning to get there early, unlock that shutter, leave it rolled up a couple of feet, head inside, and take up a defensive position.
Reacher returned to the front of the building and crossed to the right-hand side of the façade. The way the structure was joined to its neighbor created a kind of alcove, four feet wide and three feet deep. A metal drainpipe ran the whole way down from the roof to the ground. It was painted dark blue and was held in place by sturdy iron brackets. It was about three inches in diameter, and it snaked its way around a kind of ornamental ledge just below the level of the second floor. Above the ledge was a window. And the glass in the windowpane was missing.
Reacher tugged on the drainpipe. It felt solid. He gripped it with both hands at chest height, stretched his arms, and raised his right leg so that his foot was flat against the wall. The pipe held. Reacher leaned back and placed his left foot against the wall, eighteen inches higher than his right. Immediately the lowest bracket gave way. The pipe snapped. Reacher crashed back down and landed on one heel with a ten-foot section of pipe in his hand. He set it down gently so as not to make any noise then pressed his back against the alcove’s side wall. He pressed his right foot against the opposite wall, set his left foot next to it, and pushed hard so that he was suspended above the ground. It was like he was sitting in an invisible chair. He lowered his arms to his side, below his butt, and pressed his palms against the rough bricks to take some of the strain. He moved his right foot up twelve inches, then his left. Then he slackened the pressure his legs were exerting, just for a moment, pressed down with his hands, and slid his back up the wall until his legs were again parallel to the ground. He took a breath then repeated the process: right foot up, left foot up, ease the pressure, push with his hands. Hewent through the routine once more and gained another twelve inches of height. He repeated the moves again and again, a dozen times in all, until the ledge beneath the window was at waist level. Then he threw himself forward, pushing against the wall with his hands, then flinging both arms out in front like a swimmer diving into a pool. He landed his forearms flat on the ledge, caught his breath, heaved himself up onto his hands, and wriggled headfirst through the broken window.
The tap on the door of the office above his bar in Harbor East was so faint that Dominic Kelleher wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it. He listened for a moment, thought he could maybe hear someone fidgeting in the hallway, then said, ‘Who’s there?’
A woman’s voice said, ‘It’s Mia.’
Kelleher closed his laptop, gathered up the papers that were spread across his desk, dropped them into the top drawer, then said, ‘Mia? About time. Get in here.’
The door opened very slowly and the woman Reacher had prevented from ripping off the seniors at the coffee shop stepped into the room. She closed the door behind her, shuffled forward, and stopped in the center of a dusty, threadbare rug in front of Kelleher’s desk. She was wearing an auburn wig now and was looking at her feet. A blind was pulled across the window behind Kelleher. Three old file cabinets were lined up along the left wall and a pair of leather armchairs sat opposite them. A small wooden table with an ashtray at its center was squeezed in between them, and the air in the little office was heavy with the scent of cigars.
Kelleher said, ‘You alone?’
Mia nodded.
‘Where are the others?’
‘At the hospital. Mick’s got a concussion. Norman’s arm’s messed up pretty bad. They’re having trouble setting the bones. He might need surgery.’
‘Someone jumped you?’
Mia nodded again.
‘Who?’
Mia shrugged. ‘Some guy.’
‘On his own?’
‘Right.’
‘Three of you got jumped by one guy on his own?’
‘You should have seen him. He was huge. And nuts. Like some kind of psycho. He looked like a Neanderthal.’
‘You ever seen him before?’
‘No.’
‘Ever communicated with him?’
