Hit the Road Jack Read online

  Few pedestrians raised their heads from the biting November wind enough to notice him; those who did veered wide, walked along the curb, as far away as possible from the boxy doorway. Just in case.

  When the burner cell phone vibrated he pulled it out of his pocket and held the speaker to his ear. The woman’s voice reported just the facts, “Messages delivered; on their way.”

  He said nothing.

  He dropped the phone to the concrete, smashed it casually with the heel of his heavy boot, picked up the largest pieces, scattered the smallest, and walked unhurried toward Pennsylvania Avenue, dropping the rest into random trash bins along his route.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Agent Carlos Gaspar flashed his badge at the entrance to the Pentagon, provided appropriate identification and after his approved visitor status was confirmed, he was flagged through.

  As he expected, the building was busy even though it was five o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. Gaspar had slept an hour on the plane; Tylenol, the strongest painkiller he allowed himself, never lasted longer. He’d stopped for coffee after he passed security.

  No one knew him here, but both civilians and military personnel were busy with more pressing matters. He’d passed security so they ignored him, likely accepting that his clearance was high enough. Which it was.

  He glanced at the digital clock on the wall. Two hours before he’d meet Otto in the coffee shop. Plenty of time.

  The first step in any follow-up investigation was to review and analyze all the previous reports. Because Otto and Gaspar were tasked by one of the FBI’s most powerful leaders and assigned a rush under-the-radar project, this step hadn’t been completed.

  He knew where he was going, what to look for, and what he should find there.

  He also knew he wouldn’t find it. The absence of what should be present would speak volumes.

  Archived service records, defined as records for veterans sixty-two years or more post-separation, were stored and open to the public at the new National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Nothing pertaining to Reacher would be archived there because he’d been discharged in March 1997.

  All inactive personnel records for veterans with a discharge date less than sixty-two years ago remained the property of the Department of Defense and its individual branches. In Reacher’s case, that meant the Army.

  Gaspar was an active, practicing Catholic. He believed in divine providence. At first, it felt like he was on the right investigative path and he might find what he sought, even without an official archive. A fire had destroyed service records at the prior St. Louis center in 1973, but Reacher was only thirteen then.

  But then Gaspar ran into several official gaps that concealed Reacher’s history more effectively than youth or fire.

  The Army didn’t begin retaining records electronically until 2002, five years after Reacher’s separation. This meant his files weren’t retained in electronic format by the Army or electronically shared with the NPRC.

  Worse, the Army’s policies on maintaining and releasing service records were changed in April, 1997 and several times thereafter. The rules filled more than fifty-five pages, regularly revised, of course.

  All of which meant that Reacher’s records were once and should remain hard copies, resting in files owned by the Army that could be and probably were buried so deep in bullshit that no one would ever find them.

  Unless.

  Unless Reacher did something to get himself inscribed by bits and bytes into the electronic records after he left the army.

  Which, Gaspar was betting, Reacher had done. Probably many times. For sure, at least once barely six months after the army let him go. If Gaspar could find that record, he’d have verified hard proof and Reacher’s trail might begin to unravel.

  Gaspar knew Reacher had been arrested in Margrave, Georgia, and his fingerprints were taken and sent to FBI headquarters. A report was returned to the Margrave Police Department. Margrave PD records were also destroyed in a fire, which Gaspar was as sure as he could possibly be was no coincidence.

  Even so, the initial fingerprint request should exist in FBI files. Gaspar had checked. The request did not exist in FBI files. Which Gaspar was sure, but could not prove, was no coincidence, either.

  This was where the government’s redundancy and repetitive nature might be harnessed, Gaspar hoped. The Margrave PD request and FBI reply should also have been noted in Reacher’s military file, as should any request and reply about Reacher at any time from the date of his discharge until this very moment and into the future. Anything after 2002 should be electronically recorded for sure. And anything before 1997 might also have been updated because of the later electronic entries.

  It was this army record Gaspar sought now. Positive paper trail proof of the legally admissible kind that Jack Reacher had been present in Margrave in September 1997, six months after his Army discharge, that Reacher was there. Not a shadow. Not a ghost. Not a rumor. But a real person.

  Tangible proof of Reacher’s Margrave presence was important because it provided the immovable, rock hard foundation Gaspar needed to nail down. His training said it was required and his gut said it mattered and that was enough for him. He and Otto were assigned to build the Reacher file and by God, he’d do it right, and he wouldn’t make his wife a widow or his five children orphans in the process if he could possibly help it.

  First things first. The Margrave PD print request and the Army’s reply.

  Then they would take the next steps.

  Whatever those steps were.

  And if the print request and reply documents were missing from the army files?

  Starting here and now, he would confirm one way or the other.

  Gaspar was a practicing Catholic. He believed in divine intervention. But he was an FBI Special Agent who also believed in hard proof and his gut. So he knew. He knew before he opened the box marked Jack (none) Reacher and sifted through the paperwork.

  Relevant records ended when Reacher separated from the army in March 1997.

  After Gaspar confirmed it, he and Otto could move forward. But to where?

  CHAPTER SIX

  An hour before the scheduled meeting, Otto and Gaspar stepped out of the coffee shop located across the street from the J. Edgar Hoover building into the mild autumn weather. Full dark had fallen awhile back, but streetlights and headlights and floodlights eliminated all blackness. The trees were partially clothed in fall finery; grass remained green and a few flowers still bloomed. No breeze ruffled to cool the temperature.

  After Wisconsin, Kim found the evening weather pleasantly warm. After Miami, Gaspar might have been a bit chilled. Both were energized by the anticipated confrontation. Maybe they were finally going to catch a break.

  Saturday night on Pennsylvania Avenue NW was subdued. Traffic moved at posted speeds or less. Couples and small groups populated the sidewalks, strolling with discrete distances between them. Nothing out of the ordinary to notice.

  Gaspar stretched like a cat, asked, “Shall we walk?” and set off eastbound before she had a chance to respond.

  Kim ran through the options. The Metro Stop at 7th Street was off the path, a cab wasn’t worth the wait, she absolutely wasn’t taking the bus, Gaspar wasn’t limping, and walking always helped to organize her thoughts before a mission.

  “Probably easiest, if you’re up for it,” Kim said, quickening her pace to reach him and keep up with his longer stride.

  So they approached the National Gallery of Art’s East Building the first time as any tourist might travel from FBI headquarters, hoofing less than a mile along Pennsylvania Avenue, turning right at 4th Street NW, and walking along the sidewalk opposite the East Building.

  Kim had studied the building through quick online research during her return flight from Madison. Opened in 1978, it was designed by I.M. Pei, which no doubt accounted for its irregular shape and probably explained the National Honor Award from the American Institute of Archi
tects in 1981.

  Inside, the building housed modern art, research centers, and offices. Outside, it was nestled among the trees, surrounded by a six-acre contemporary sculpture garden and green space on three sides.

  Although it was connected underground to the more traditional West Building where the main Gallery entrance was located, the East Building also admitted the public through a massive glass-walled entrance facing 4th Street.

  Before they turned onto 4th Street, they’d seen a line of cabs and limousines at the East Building’s front entrance. Kim looked inside the East Building lobby as they walked past. The room seemed stuffed to capacity. Men in tuxedoes; women in long gowns and short skirts; waiters passing trays of canapés and bubbly; a string quartet playing in the front corner. None of the noise from the party seeped out to Kim’s ears.

  “Some sort of charity gala?” she asked, noticing the flags on a few of the limos. “Diplomats, maybe?”

  At the 4th Street and Madison Drive corner, they crossed 4th Street, turned and returned along the sidewalk closest to the East Building this time. The green space was lighted, but too dark to traverse without dogs and Tasers. They stayed on the sidewalk until they reached the opposite corner, which was technically 4th Street and Constitution.

  Gaspar’s gaze scanned everywhere. He said, “Three dark hoodies at three o’clock, south side, between the glass pyramids. Check it out next pass.”

  “Reacher?”

  He wagged his head. “Too small.”

  “You saw the sculptures and all those narrow, open areas around the building?” she asked. What worried her were the number of deeply shadowed areas suitable for clandestine attacks. Quick death was easy to imagine and bodies could lie in those shadows for a good long time before anyone noticed.

  Gaspar seemed to hear her concern. “Even if he planned this—”

  “You think he didn’t?”

  He wagged his head. “Not Reacher’s style, is it? Based on what we know? He’d come right at us if he wanted to take us out.”

  Kim’s breath sucked in and stayed there a beat. “Why don’t I find that reassuring?” she said lightly when she could speak again.

  Gaspar laughed. “If he planned everything. Big if. But if he did, this is a test.”

  “Test of what?”

  Gaspar shrugged. “Dunno. He wants to see what we’ll do. Whether we’ll come alone or bring an army. How long we’ll wait. What we’ll say. My kids call it a psych-out.”

  Kim said nothing, but she agreed, partly. If she’d expected to find Reacher here tonight in the shadows, she would have brought more firepower. But she thought Reacher had planned this encounter. What exactly was he up to?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On their second pass in front of the building, the limos had begun to collect their diplomats and depart. They’d pulled up in front, one at a time, orderly, their drivers knowing the drill. The glass doors opened, spilling music and party chatter into the quiet.

  Kim saw the three hooded people Gaspar had spied, standing between two of the glass pyramids. They wore dark jeans, dark athletic shoes, stood with their hands in their pockets, fidgeting, but otherwise seemed to lack menace. Impossible to discern whether they were men or women. Aside from the weather being too warm for hoodies, Kim saw nothing alarming about them. Yet.

  By the third pass most of the guests and all of the limos had departed. The string quartet was breaking down their equipment inside. Cabs pulled up one at a time waiting for fares. The noise level had diminished.

  Kim checked her Seiko. It was ten minutes past their scheduled meet. What were they looking for? Waiting for? She had no clue, and on this point she judged Gaspar clueless as well.

  Was Reacher here? Watching? Kim had looked for him but had seen nothing resembling a giant paying attention to her.

  On the fourth pass, Kim noticed a woman standing apart from the building in the shadow of the largest pyramid, facing the line of cabs at the front entrance, facing her and Gaspar, facing the three hoodies, although they were blocked from her view by the large glass pyramid that separated them.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The woman wore an ankle-length black cape and silver party shoes with a three-inch spike heel poked below the hemline. The cape’s full hood covered her head and obscured her face. She was slightly built, medium height. Kim could discern nothing else about the woman’s shape concealed by her cape.

  Kim felt her gun resting securely within easy reach before she touched Gaspar’s arm. He nodded. They moved together into the shadows toward the woman. Despite the hour’s walking, his limp remained under control.

  The woman said, “No closer. I can hear you from there.”

  They stopped. Kim calculated how quickly she could close the distance. Slightly faster than their adversary, since she was encumbered by those spike heels.

  “What do you want?” the woman asked.

  “You know that already,” Kim answered and then asked her own question. “Who are you?”

  The woman smiled briefly, as if the response was expected according to some tit-for-tat plan. “Susan Duffy, DEA, Houston office. Why are you hunting Reacher?”

  “We want information about him.” Kim hesitated a couple of beats to see if the woman would fill the silence. She didn’t. “Why do you care?”

  Susan Duffy broke the rules; she didn’t answer the question. “What kind of information?”

  “Everything, including his underwear size and what kind of condoms he uses. Whatever we need to get him in the box,” Gaspar said.

  Susan Duffy, if that’s who she was, laughed.

  Kim was vaguely aware that the departing gala guests had diminished from a few hundred to a few dozen to a few couples, making the trek from the entrance to the waiting cabs only a pair at a time.

  Gaspar asked, “What do you know about Reacher?”

  Duffy had tired of the game, perhaps. She simply stated the message she’d come to deliver. “You’re wasting your time looking in official files. You’ll find plenty before March 1997, but it’s all bullshit Reacher prepared himself. You won’t find anything involving Reacher after that.”

  “Why not?”

  Duffy’s expression was unreadable. “Reacher has friends in high and low places.”

  “Friends who made his crimes disappear, you mean?”

  Duffy’s tone hardened. “Friends like me. Friends who notice you making pests of yourselves in our files and repeatedly finding nothing. You don’t want that to happen again. Not everyone is as understanding as I am.”

  Gaspar asked, “How do you know every file has been scrubbed clean of every Jack Reacher reference?”

  Duffy slid the big hood back revealing short blonde hair, small ears close to her head, and huge emerald earrings. She put a bit of friendly into her voice. “Keep looking if you have nothing better to do. Your file on Jack Reacher will remain thin. Your mission will fail. You’ll never put Reacher in any kind of box. And you’ll piss people off. But hey, if you want to throw your careers in the toilet, you’ll get no problem from me.”

  Kim watched one of the last pair of partiers walking toward the curb while she allowed this information to soak in. Both the man and the woman were older, a bit unsteady on their feet. Tipsy maybe.

  She didn’t know how she felt about Duffy’s attitude. Challenged? Should she try to prove Duffy wrong? Or relieved? Because she could now focus elsewhere?

  She asked, “Do you know where Reacher is?”

  After a moment, Duffy shook her head, “You won’t find him if he doesn’t want to be found.”

  Gaspar’s impatience flared. “We’ll find him. We found Osama Bin Laden and he was a hell of a lot more powerful than Jack Reacher.”

  Duffy smiled again, “Yeah, we found Bin Laden. After ten years of looking. Yeah, we got him. After SEAL Team Six made it happen.” She paused for the briefest of moments. “But we didn’t take him alive. If you’ve got ten years and a SEAL team, maybe you can manage to ki
ll Reacher, but you won’t take him alive unless he wants you to.” She shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  Kim took a deep breath. “So what do you suggest?”

  “You could give up.”

  Gaspar chuckled. “You don’t know Otto.”

  The energy in the air seemed to shift, as if Duffy had done what she’d come to do. She nodded slightly before lifting the hood to cover her shimmering blonde hair and returning her hands to her pockets. Her slight form almost merged with the darkness and became a single shadow.

  “Suit yourself,” her disembodied voice seemed to echo too loudly. She softened her tone. “But know this: you risk everything if you keep looking. Everything. And Reacher risks nothing while he waits. That doesn’t sound like a winning equation to me. Does it to you?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Before Kim could answer she heard a loud thump behind her. She turned to see the three hoodies emerge from the pyramids moving swiftly. They approached the older couple leaving the gala.

  The hoodies’ moves seemed choreographed, as if they’d practiced or maybe done this many times before. One shoved into the distinguished tuxedoed man knocking him off balance; he shouted “Hey!” before he regained his unsteady footing.

  At the same time, the second hoodie stopped, raised his arm, and pointed a Glock squarely at the older woman’s chest. The woman looked green, as if she might vomit, and began to shake.

  The third hoodie shoved the tuxedoed man backward and shouted, “You got something to say?”

  The man tripped and fell on his left side. A loud crack followed by the man’s animal-like screaming confirmed broken bones, at least.