Blue Moon - Lee Child Page 0,97
heading west toward Ukrainian territory. Noon was coming. The day was close to halfway over. Reacher drove. Abby counted the money they had taken from the guys in the trunk. Not much. A total of two hundred ten dollars. We’re guys who sit in cars. Clearly on a lower per diem than an old horse like Gezim Hoxha got. Their phones showed the same barrage of texts they had seen before, plus a whole string of new ones. All in Ukrainian. Abby recognized the shapes of some of the words, from her crash course the night before, with Vantresca.
“They’re changing the situation again,” she said.
“To what?” Reacher asked.
“I can’t read it. I don’t know which letter it is. Presumably either up to C, or back down to A.”
“Probably not back down,” Reacher said. “Under the circumstances.”
“I think they’re blaming the Russians. I think they’re calling Aaron Shevick a Russian.”
“Where are the texts coming from?”
“All the same number. Probably an automated distribution system.”
“Probably in a computer in the nerve center.”
“Probably.”
“Check the phone log.”
“What am I looking for?”
“The call that told them to go get Maria Shevick.”
Abby dabbed and scrolled her way to a list of recent calls.
“The last one incoming was about an hour ago,” she said. “Fifty-seven minutes, to be precise.”
Reacher timed his way through what had happened, but in reverse, like a stopwatch running backward. Following the van west, loading the van, getting the van, leaving the house, about four minutes and thirty seconds spent at the house, walking through the Shevicks’ yard, walking through the neighbor’s yard, getting out of the car. Out of the Jaguar, which was lined up parallel to the Lincoln, nose to nose and tail to tail, but about two hundred feet apart. Fifty-seven minutes. The two guys could have been getting out of their own car at the exact same moment.
He said, “Where did the call come from?”
She checked.
“A weird cell number,” she said. “Probably a disposable drugstore phone.”
“Probably a senior figure. Maybe even Gregory himself. It was a major strategic decision. They want to know when the Russians are coming. They think I can tell them. They wanted Maria as leverage. They must think we’re related.”
“What kind of leverage?”
“The wrong kind. Call the number back.”
“Really?”
“There are things that need to be said.”
Abby put the phone on speaker and chose an option from the call log menu. Dial tone filled the car. Then a voice answered, with a foreign word that could have been hello, or yes, or what, or shoot, or whatever else people say when they answer the phone.
Reacher said, “Speak English.”
The voice said, “Who are you?”
“You first,” Reacher said. “Tell me your name.”
“Are you Shevick?”
“No,” Reacher said. “You’re confused about that. You’re confused about a lot of things.”
“Then who are you?”
“You first,” Reacher said again.
“What do you want?”
“I have a message for Gregory.”
“Who are you?”
“You first,” Reacher said, for the third time.
“My name is Danilo,” the guy said.
Abby stiffened in her seat.
“I am Gregory’s chief of staff,” the guy said. “What is your message?”
“It’s for Gregory,” Reacher said. “Transfer the call.”
“Not until I know who you are. Where are you from?”
“I was born in Berlin,” Reacher said.
“You’re East German? Not Russian?”
“My dad was a U.S. Marine. He was deployed to our embassy. I was born there. A month later I was somewhere else. Now I’m here. With a message for Gregory.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jack Reacher.”
“That’s the old man.”
“I told you, you’re confused about that. I’m not as young as I was, but I’m not old yet. Overall I’m doing OK. Now transfer the call.”
The guy named Danilo went quiet for a long moment. The chief of staff. A big decision. Like an executive officer. You didn’t bug the CO with the small stuff, but you made damn sure you knew which small stuff was really big stuff in disguise. And then, the biggest bureaucratic rule of all: if in doubt, play it safe.
Danilo played it safe. There was a click, and a long moment of dead air, and another click, and then a new voice came on, with a foreign word that could have been hello, or yes, or what, or shoot, or whatever.
Reacher said, “Speak English.”
Gregory said, “What do you want?”
“You got caller ID?”
“Why?”
“So you can tell who’s calling you.”
“You told Danilo your name is Reacher.”
“But whose phone am I on?”
No answer.
“They’re dead,” Reacher said. “They were useless. Like all your guys have been useless. They’re going down like flies. Pretty soon you’ll have no one left.”
“What