Don't Know Jack

“She’s talking about Sylvia, right?”

“Who?”

“Roscoe.”

“Can’t imagine who else she’d be that pissed about, can you?”

“Why would we take Sylvia? Why would anyone? That’s crazy, isn’t it?”

Gaspar shrugged, not looking up from his work. “Our flight leaves in forty minutes.”

“I haven’t been this confused since I tried to learn Mandarin,” she said, not joking.

“What’s to learn? Little oranges in a can.” He glanced at her and said, “Look up Joe Reacher’s date of death. That’ll give us a way to figure out the exact date Jack Reacher arrived in Margrave, right?”

Kim said, “Joe died Thursday, September 4, 1997, about midnight.”

Gaspar stared at her. “Did you just pull that out of thin air?”

She shrugged. “It’s in Jack Reacher’s file. I’ve got a good memory for dates. As in: June 6, 1998, Roscoe’s daughter was born. Jacqueline Roscoe Trent. Nine pounds, two ounces. Thirty inches long. Fair hair. Blue eyes.”

“Big kid,” Gaspar said. “My wife would’ve killed me if any of ours were that size.”

“Beverly Roscoe and David Trent were married on Christmas Day 1997. December 25^th. The bride was nearly four months pregnant at the wedding.”

Gaspar pointed and clicked. He said, “Finlay was promoted from Chief of Detectives to Chief of Police on September 30, 1997, after the former top cop died on September 7, 1997. He was called Morrison. Which means that Joe Reacher and this Morrison guy died within three days of each other. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“No, it can’t,” she said. “And I just found Joe Reacher’s obituary.”

“Interesting?”

“Born in Palo, Leyte, Philippines, August 1958, died at the age of 38 years. Parents Stan and Josephine both predeceased him, his only sibling Jack survived him. Educated on military bases around the world, then West Point, then Military Intelligence, and then Treasury.”

“That’s an odd trajectory.”

“You bet. Military Intelligence and Treasury are about as divorced from each other as it’s possible to get and still be in government service. He was killed in the line of duty. As a Treasury agent. Cremated. Ashes scattered in Margrave, Georgia. Which is weird.”

“I know,” Gaspar said. “He was a veteran. Why wasn’t he buried at Arlington?”

“That’s not what’s weird. What’s weird is how a treasury agent gets killed in the line of duty in a sleepy little town like Margrave, Georgia, in September 1997? How would that happen? Why was he even there?”

“Were you even born in 1997?” Gaspar asked.

“There’s no death certificate online. This is nuts. We’re the FBI. The most sophisticated and best equipped and most comprehensive agency in the world. And we can’t get any information from our own sources on an active investigation?”

“Welcome under the radar, baby. If it was easy, they wouldn’t need high-octane talent like us, now would they?” He closed his laptop and began packing up.

“I’m calling Roscoe.”

“Good luck with that.”

She picked up her phone and pressed the call back button.

Gaspar stretched and limped around the room, limbering up. She noticed the limp and knew he was shaking it off. The list of things she intended to discuss with him was already long, but maybe that one should be moved to the top. She put the call on speaker while she shoved cords into her bag and pulled the zippers. Roscoe’s cell rang ten times, twelve, fifteen. Then Roscoe’s angry voice filled the room. It said: “You better tell me your ass is back in Margrave and you have Sylvia Black with you.”

Gaspar tapped his wrist with his finger to show her time was ticking. Kim said, “Chief Roscoe, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Save it, Agent Otto. I’ve got the guy’s card right here in front of me. L. Mark Newton, Esquire. From Washington D.C. He had a Federal Marshal with him, for God’s sake. You sent them down here to pick up Sylvia. In the middle of the night when I wasn’t here to stop them. You know it. I know it. And I want her back. Whatever it is you want with her, you can get in the damn line behind me.”

“We don’t have her.”

“Save it,” Roscoe said again. “Just get her back here, or I’ll make you sorry. Are we clear?”

“Look, we don’t have her. But we’re on our way. See you before noon.”

The call died.

Gaspar said, “There’s one truly major flaw in that story.”

“Which is?”

“L. Mark Newton died last year,” he said.

'I know. I was at the funeral.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Halfway to the departure gate Kim felt the boss’s cell phone vibrate in her front trouser pocket. She shifted her bags around to free one hand and tried to fish the phone out without slowing her stride. She couldn’t do it. The phone buzzed on. It felt alive, wriggling against her abdomen. She’d have to stop. But she couldn’t. The jet way door at their gate was already closed. She saw the plane through the plate glass window, still parked outside. But passengers could not be boarded after the doors were closed. Technically, the plane was gone. They’d missed the flight.

“We have to board,” Kim told the gate agent, breathless.

“I’m sorry, that’s not possible,” the gate agent said without looking up. She was working the final documents to get the plane in the air.

Kim felt the cell phone buzz on. She’d never failed to answer the boss. She never planned to. She kept her voice calm. She said, “I need you to open the door.” She put her hand in her pocket. To get the cell phone. But the gate agent misinterpreted. Her left hand darted under the counter. She hit the panic button.

Kim gave up on the cell phone and kept both hands in plain sight. She stood stock still. Where the hell was Gaspar?

He showed up three paces behind two TSA personnel. They had guns drawn. Kim kept her hands in view and said, “FBI,” as calmly as possible. She reached slowly across her body with her left hand and opened her jacket to reveal her badge, clipped to her waistband.

Gaspar came up behind her and flashed his badge, too.

“What’s the problem?” he said.

Kim held her breath while the agents looked them both over. In the corner of her eye she saw the plane begin to move.

“You’re too late,” one of the TSA guys said.

“Let’s pretend we’re not,” Kim replied.

The phone was still buzzing.

Time stood still.

Then the first agent said, “OK, hurry.”

Agent two opened the departure door wide enough to slip through. Kim ran. Gaspar followed. The door sucked shut behind them. The boss’s phone bounced against Kim’s hip as she ran. She turned the final corner and saw the jet way separating from the plane’s open door. She stopped at the widening gap. Cold November air blew into the tunnel. The flight attendant was on the phone in the cabin. To the gate agent, presumably. She called out to the jet way engineer. The jet way stopped moving. The plane stopped moving.

Four feet of empty space.

Maybe five.

The stewardess said, “You can make it. I’ve done it lots of times.”