Personal (Jack Reacher, #19)(35)

‘Conclusions?’ O’Day asked.

Shoemaker sat back, as if the question wasn’t aimed at him, and Scarangello glanced at Casey Nice, who shrugged and said nothing. I said, ‘Kott and Carson are in London already. They’re hiring local support. But not with money. Apparently the help wanted payment in kind this time. As in, the elimination of a rival.’

O’Day nodded. ‘A rival otherwise very difficult to get to, at street level. But raise your eyes, and London’s skyline is densely developed now. Lots of opportunities at a thousand yards, one imagines. And a thousand yards is nothing to Kott. Practically point-blank range.’

‘Or Carson,’ I said.

‘Or Datsev,’ he said. ‘Carson is only your opinion. We must keep an open mind.’

‘Did anything like this happen in Paris?’

O’Day nodded again. ‘I think it did. Not that we ever put two and two together, because there was no rifle involved. About a week before the attempt on the president, an Algerian gang leader was knifed to death in Montmartre. A very big cheese, as the French might say. And looking back at it now, you’d have to say the Vietnamese were plausible beneficiaries.’

Casey Nice asked, ‘Who benefits in London?’

‘I’m awaiting a definitive report,’ O’Day said. ‘But ballpark estimates put two in the frame. A Serbian outfit in the west of London, and an old-fashioned English gang in the east. Karel Libor was a thorn in both their sides, according to MI5.’

I said, ‘Where exactly is the G8 location?’

‘In the east of London.’

‘Then if local really means local, they’re palling up with the old-fashioned Brits.’

‘For what exactly?’ Scarangello asked.

Shoemaker said, ‘Part of the payment in kind would be considered an old-fashioned tribute, to be allowed to operate there at all. Like a toll or a tax, almost. The rest will be for logistics, places to stay, places to hide, and then on the day itself, sentries and other security close up, and a cordon out at a distance. Like we just saw in Paris.’

‘That makes it harder for us.’

I shook my head.

‘It makes it easier,’ I said. ‘We’re not looking for two guys any more. We’re looking for about fifty-two guys. They say local support, I say breadcrumbs.’

O’Day said, ‘You were right about Kott’s neighbour, by the way. The FBI found most of ten thousand dollars in cash. But not in the back of his closet.’

‘Where, then?’

‘In the washing machine in his front yard.’

‘Smart,’ I said. ‘I should have checked. Who gave it to him?’

‘He won’t say. And waterboarding is out of fashion at the moment.’

‘He’s too scared to say. Which might be significant.’

‘And the French found the bullet that killed Khenkin. From this morning. Badly deformed against the wall of the apartment house, but the chemistry is the same as the fragments you brought back from Arkansas. The same batch, quite possibly.’

I nodded. ‘Which raises questions about travel. He didn’t fly commercial, or you’d have a paper trail. He couldn’t check a fifty-calibre rifle and a box of bullets without someone noticing.’

‘Two possibilities,’ Shoemaker said. ‘A cargo ship out of Mobile or Galveston, or a private plane out of practically anywhere. Customs checks at private fields in Europe are basically nonexistent.’

‘Private plane for sure,’ O’Day said. ‘These people are throwing money around. I mean, ten grand for a toothless hillbilly in Arkansas? That’s way over the odds. The guy would have been happy with a couple hundred, surely. They’re not looking for value. They’re looking for easy solutions, and they have the budget to make them happen.’

Casey Nice asked, ‘How did they get to London today?’

Scarangello said, ‘Train, probably. Through the tunnel. There’s a passport check in Paris, but apart from that it’s fast and easy, city centre to city centre.’

‘How did they transport their rifles?’

‘Golf bags, maybe. Or ski bags. Lots of people carry weird luggage.’

‘How did they know who to hook up with in London, in terms of local support?’

‘Prior research, I assume. Prior negotiation, perhaps.’

‘We’ll know more in the morning,’ O’Day said. ‘Take the rest of the evening off, and we’ll reconvene at breakfast tomorrow.’

I went down the stairs and headed out the red door, but once again I heard the click of good shoes and the swish of dark nylons behind me. I turned around and found Joan Scarangello coming after me. She was looking at me with some kind of bleak emotion in her eyes. She said, ‘We need to talk.’

I said, ‘About what?’

‘You.’

‘What about me?’

‘I don’t want to talk out here.’

‘Where, then?’

‘Your quarters. They feel unoccupied. Like neutral space.’

So we walked over together and I opened up and we sat like we had before, with me on the sofa and her in a chair, with our angles adjusted, so that we were looking at each other face to face. She asked, ‘Did you enjoy your dinner?’