was a tomorrow. Not that anyone would see her bruises. The Danish she’d eaten threatened to come back up. She wanted to grab the airsickness bag, but she’d have to crack her fingers away from the armrests to reach for it.
Then the plane’s wheels bounced twice on the tarmac and skidded a long, loud, smoky distance before grabbing the runway hard enough to jerk her head off the seat and slam it back again. She breathed out and felt stupid, as always. Then her embarrassment doubled when she looked down at her lap and realized she’d never finished getting dressed.
Kim waited curbside behind the wheel of a rented Chevy Blazer. She took a look at the airline’s web site flight tracking data on her personal smart phone. “Terrorist.com,” she called it, because constant flight status updates on any commercial flight were quick and easy to find. Agent Gaspar’s flight from Miami had just landed. He’d be with her soon. She ate the last antacid in the roll. When it melted, she washed the chalky taste away with a swig of black coffee.
Then she opened her computer and stared one more time at Jack Reacher’s face, critically analyzing the full photo, committing every pixel to memory. The Army’s black and white regulation head shot suggested but didn’t confirm Reacher’s height, which was recorded at six-five, or his hair color, described elsewhere as fair, or his eye color, which was blue, or his enormous build, listed at two hundred and fifty pounds.
Kim shuddered. On the inside she was one hundred percent lithe, lanky, formidable German, like her father. But on the outside, she was exactly 5’0” tall, like her mother, and she weighed 100 pounds on her fat days. Reacher was more than twice her size; she hoped she was more than twice as smart. Brains, not brawn, would have to be her weapon.
Therefore she needed a better photo. An army photo wouldn’t do the job. People would remember Reacher. He wasn’t just memorable. More like unforgettable. But no doubt patriotism was still alive and well in Margrave, Georgia. Locals would say nothing negative about a man dressed in army green and gold and sporting a chestful of medals. Witnesses might even deny knowing him, even though it was a federal crime to lie to an FBI agent in the course of an investigation.
Kim had been trained to observe witness reactions to photographs. Witnesses found it difficult to deny recognition, and harder still to lie effectively when confronted with a picture. People had trouble remembering names, but faces were imprinted in a different area of the brain, more easily recalled. So she would know if a witness recognized Reacher, even if they lied. She’d be able to tell. But failure was not an option, so she needed a different picture.
She switched to the altered head shot she had created on the plane. She had cropped out Reacher’s army uniform and removed his hat in this version. Was her photo editing good enough to deny Reacher his unfair advantage?
Then knuckles rapped hard on the Blazer’s side window. Kim closed her computer and looked at the inquiring face only inches from her own. She pressed the button to lower the window. Before she had a chance to speak, Special Agent Carlos Gaspar said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I tried to open the hatch, but it’s locked. Give me the key. I’ll toss my bags in and we can get on the road.”
“Sure,” she said. She turned off the ignition, handed him the keys and stepped out of the truck. She met him at the rear of the vehicle, watching as he moved her bag out, placed his on the bottom, and then put hers back on top.
A considerate guy.
Very proper.
She extended her hand in greeting and said, “Kim Otto.”
“Carlos Gaspar,” he said, taking her hand in a firm grasp, neither too hard or too soft. A respectful handshake. Not at all macho. She liked him already.
He said, “It’s about an hour to Margrave. I’ve been there before. I’ll drive.”
“Actually, I prefer to drive,” she said. She felt uncomfortable with anyone else behind the wheel. Particularly someone she didn’t know and had never traveled with before. She had no idea what kind of driver he was. Her queasy stomach might not survive, and there was no way she was going to throw up in front of this guy. Not now. Not ever.
“I’m a good driver,” he said. “And I’ll be faster, because I know where we’re going.”
He opened the driver’s door and moved the seat back, for his longer legs.
Maybe not so proper or respectful.
Maybe he was going to be one of those overbearing Latino males.
He was all the way inside the car now. He stuck his head out the window and asked, “Are you coming or not? We’ll have to hustle to get there on time as it is.”
She got into the passenger seat and Gaspar accelerated the second she’d closed the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
Carlos Gaspar was hurting, but that was nothing new. Inside and out, mentally and physically, he lived with pain. He had slept badly and given up on it before three in the morning. He had crept out of the bedroom and holed up in the kitchen and started his day with Tylenol and coffee, like he always did. Nothing stronger, although God knew he was tempted. But that way lay ruin, and he knew he couldn’t afford to get any more ruined than he already was. He had a wife and four children and twenty years to go before he could relax.
He showered and shaved and dressed in a tan poplin suit from Banana Republic, which would have gotten him killed in DC, but which was the standard uniform in the Miami field office. He went back to the kitchen and ate more Tylenol and drank more coffee and sat still and imagined he could hear his family breathing.
His phone rang at three minutes past four in the morning. Not his regular phone. Not his personal phone, either, but a plain Motorola that had been bubble-wrapped and delivered to him through the Bureau’s internal mail service. He knew who had sent it. He had fired it up and noted its number and run it through the databases. It didn’t exist.
He answered it and a voice asked, “Gaspar?”
He said, “Yes, sir,” quietly, so as not to wake his family, and because a low tone seemed to be appropriate for this guy.
The voice said, “There are files for you in your inbox. Read them on the plane. You’re going to Atlanta.”
“When, sir?”
“Now.”
“OK.”
Then there was a pause. Just a beat, but Gaspar heard it. The voice said, “You’re going to be the number two on this. Your lead will be Otto, out of Detroit. No reflection on you.”
Which was bullshit, of course. Everything was a reflection on him. Although maybe this guy Otto was a big deal. People who were referred to by their first name only usually were. Gaspar wondered whether he was supposed to have heard of him. But he hadn’t. He had never worked in Detroit. Knew nothing about the office or the city, except that they used to make cars there.
He said, “No problem,” but he said it to nobody, because the voice was already gone. He put the phone in his bag, which was permanently packed and ready to go, laptop, shirt, underwear, Tylenol. The bag was made by the same people that made Swiss Army knives, which was OK, but it had wheels and a handle, which wasn’t. Trundling a bag around was one step from being in a wheelchair.
It was what it was.
He drove himself to the airport in his Bureau car, which was a blue Crown Vic with government plates. He could park it anywhere. He propped his laptop on the passenger seat and drove one-handed and stabbed at the keys and brought up his e-mail, not 3G wireless, but a secure satellite connection. One new message, as expected. One attached file, zipped and encrypted. No accompanying text. No hello, no best wishes. Par for the course.
