Blue Moon - Lee Child Page 0,85
Almost certainly the lattermost, he thought, in the real world. The guy was already jumpy. By then he would be startled and panicked. Most handgun rounds missed their target under the best of circumstances.
But would he bet Abby’s life on that?
“Show me your hands,” the driver said again.
Abby said, “Reacher?”
Ten thousand generations said stay alive and see what the next minute brings.
Reacher took his hands out of his pockets.
“Take your jacket off,” the driver said. “I can see the weight from here.”
Reacher took his jacket off. He dropped it on the blacktop. The guns in the pockets bumped and clanked. The Ukrainian H&Ks, the Albanian Glocks. His entire arsenal.
Almost.
The driver said, “Now get in the car.”
The passenger backed up to the Chrysler. Reacher thought he was going to open the rear door for them, like a guy outside a fancy hotel. But he didn’t. He opened the trunk instead.
“Good enough for Gezim Hoxha,” the driver said.
Abby said, “Reacher?”
“We’ll be OK,” he said.
“How?”
He didn’t answer. He got in first, crossways, on his side in a U shape, and then Abby got in the space he was leaving in front of him, curled on her side in a fetal position, like they were spooning in bed. Except they weren’t. The passenger closed the lid with a cheap metal clang. The world went dark. No luminous handle. Removed.
* * *
—
At that moment Dino was on the phone to Jetmir. A summons, to a meeting in Dino’s office, right then, immediately. Clearly there was something on Dino’s mind. Jetmir got there inside three minutes and sat down in front of the desk. Dino was looking at his phone. At the long sequence of texts about Gezim Hoxha, found half dead in the trunk of his car, next to an old housing development.
“Hoxha and I go back a long way,” Dino said. “I knew him when he was a cop in Tirana. He busted me once. He was the meanest bastard in Albania. I liked him. He was a solid guy. Why I gave him a job here.”
“He’s a good man,” Jetmir said.
“He can’t talk,” Dino said. “He may never. He has a serious injury to his throat.”
“We must hope for the best.”
“Who did this?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where did it happen?”
“We don’t know.”
“When exactly did it happen?”
“He was found at dawn,” Jetmir said. “Obviously the attack was prior to that, by an hour or two, possibly.”
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Dino said. “Gezim Hoxha is a man with valuable experience, having been a policeman in Tirana, and therefore he’s a man of great substance in our organization, and I gave him his job myself, and he has been with us a very long time, and he has served us well, and therefore all in all he’s considered a very senior figure here. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Then why was he running errands in the middle of the night?”
Jetmir didn’t answer.
Dino said, “Did I ask him to do something? Have I forgotten?”
“No,” Jetmir said. “I don’t think so.”
“Did you ask him to do something?”
Look for lights behind drapes. Knock on doors and ask questions if necessary.
“No,” Jetmir said.
“I don’t understand it,” Dino said. “I don’t run around in the middle of the night. I have people for that. Hoxha should have been tucked up in bed. Why wasn’t he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who else was running around in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should know. You’re my chief of staff.”
“I could ask around.”
“I already did,” Dino said. His tone changed. “Turns out a lot of guys were running around in the middle of the night. Clearly connected to something serious enough to leave a mean old bastard like Hoxha with a stoved-in throat. Given the stakes involved and the numbers involved, that sounds like a big deal to me. Sounds like something I should have been involved with. At the discussion stages at least. Sounds like something that should have gotten my personal approval. That’s the way we do business here.”
Jetmir didn’t reply.
Dino was quiet a long time.
Then finally he said, “Also I hear Gregory came by this morning. He paid us another state visit. Naturally I’m wondering why I wasn’t informed.”
Jetmir didn’t speak. Instead the inevitable remaining paragraphs of the conversation played out inside his head, fast, abbreviated, like speed chess. Back and forth. Dino would chip away relentlessly, remorselessly, until the betrayal was fully revealed, in all its damning detail. Perhaps he already knew. I could ask around. I already did. He knew some,