Killing Floor (Jack Reacher 1)

I put the dead man's secret gun down on the carpet again and the silence was shattered by the phone ringing. I sprinted for the nightstand and answered it. Heard Finlay's voice. I gripped the phone and held my breath.

"Reacher?" Finlay said. "Picard got what we need. He traced the car. "

I breathed out and nodded to Roscoe.

"Great, Finlay," I said. "So what's the story?"

"Go to his office," he said. "He'll give you the spread, face to face. I didn't want too much conversation on the phones down here. "

I closed my eyes for a second and felt a surge of energy.

"Thanks, Finlay," I said. "Speak to you later. "

"OK," he said. "Take care, right?"

Then he hung up and left me sitting there holding the phone, smiling.

"I thought he'd never call," Roscoe laughed. "But I guess eighteen hours isn't too bad, even for the Bureau, right?"

THE ATLANTA FBI WAS HOUSED IN A NEW FEDERAL BUILDING downtown. Roscoe parked at the curb outside. The Bureau reception called upstairs and told us Special Agent Picard would come right down to meet with us. We waited for him in the lobby. It was a big hall, with a brave stab at decoration, but it still had the glum atmosphere government buildings have. Picard came out of an elevator within three minutes. He loped over. He seemed to fill the whole hall. He nodded to me and took Roscoe's hand.

"Heard a lot about you from Finlay," he said to her.

His bear's voice rumbled. Roscoe nodded and smiled.

"The car Finlay found?" he said. "Rental Pontiac. Booked out to Joe Reacher, Atlanta airport, Thursday night at eight. "

"Great, Picard," I said. "Any guess about where he was holed up?"

"Better than a guess, my friend," Picard said. "They had the exact location. It was a prebooked car. They delivered it right to his hotel. "

He mentioned a place a mile the other way from the hotel we were using.

"Thanks, Picard," I said. "I owe you. "

"No problem, my friend," he said. "You take care now, OK?"

He loped off back to the elevator and we raced back south to the airport. Roscoe swung onto the perimeter road and accelerated into the flow. Across the divider, a black pickup flashed by. Brand-new. I spun around and caught a glimpse of it disappearing behind a raft of trucks. Black. Brand-new. Probably nothing. They sell more pickups down here than anything else.

ROSCOE PULLED HER BADGE AT THE DESK WHERE PICARD said Joe had checked in on Thursday. The clerk did some keyboard work and told us he had been in 621, sixth floor, far end of the corridor. She said a manager would meet us up there. So we went up in the elevator and walked the length of a dark corridor. Stood waiting outside the door to Joe's room.

The manager came by more or less straight away and opened the room up with his passkey. We stepped in. The room was empty. It had been cleaned and tidied. It looked like it was ready for new occupants.

"What about his stuff?" I said. "Where is it all?"

"We cleared it out Saturday," the manager said. "The guy was booked in Thursday night, supposed to vacate by eleven Friday morning. What we do is we give them an extra day, then if they don't show, we clear them out, down to housekeeping. "

"So his stuff is in a closet somewhere?" I asked.

"Downstairs," the manager said. "You should see the stuff we got down there. People leave things all the time. "

"So can we go take a look?" I said.

"Basement," he said. "Use the stairs from the lobby. You'll find it. "

The manager strolled off. Roscoe and I walked the length of the corridor again and rode back down in the elevator. We found the service staircase and went down to the basement. Housekeeping was a giant hall stacked with linens and towels. There were hampers and baskets full of soap and those free sachets you find in the showers. Maids were pulling in and out with the trolleys they use for servicing the rooms. There was a glassed-in office cubicle in the near corner with a woman at a small desk. We walked over and rapped on the glass. She looked up. Roscoe held out her badge.

"Help you?" the woman said.

"Room six-two-one," Roscoe said. "You cleared out some belongings, Saturday morning. You got them down here?"

I was holding my breath again.

"Six-two-one?" the woman said. "He came by for them already. They're gone. "

I breathed out. We were too late. I went numb with disappointment.

"Who came by?" I asked. "When?"

"The guest," the woman said. "This morning, maybe nine, nine thirty. "

"Who was he?" I asked her.

She pulled a small book off a shelf and thumbed it open. Licked a stubby finger and pointed to a line.

"Joe Reacher," she said. "He signed the book and took the stuff. "

She reversed the book and slid it toward us. There was a scrawled signature on the line.

"What did this Reacher guy look like?" I asked her.

She shrugged.

"Foreign," she said. "Some kind of a Latino. Maybe from Cuba? Little dark guy, slender, nice smile. Very polite sort of a guy, as I recall. "

"You got a list of the stuff?" I said.

She slid the stubby finger further along the line. There was a small column filled with tight handwriting. It listed a garment bag, eight articles of clothing, a toilet bag, four shoes. The last item listed was: one briefcase.

We just walked away from her and found the stairs back to the lobby. Walked out into the morning sun. It didn't feel like such a great day anymore.

We reached the car. Leaned side by side on the front fender. I was weighing up in my mind whether Joe would have been smart enough and careful enough to do what I would have done. I figured maybe he would have been. He'd spent a long time around smart and careful people.

"Roscoe?" I said. "If you were the guy walking out of here with Joe's stuff, what would you do?"

She stopped with the car door half open. Thought about it. "I'd keep the briefcase," she said. "Take it wherever I was supposed to take it. The rest of the stuff, I'd get rid of it. "

"That's what I would do as well," I said. "Where would you get rid of it?"

"First place I saw, I guess," she said.

There was a service road running between the hotel and the next one in line. It looped behind the hotels and then out onto the perimeter road. There was a line of Dumpsters along a twenty-yard stretch of it. I pointed.

"Suppose he drove out that way?" I said. "Suppose he stopped and lobbed the garment bag straight into one of those Dumpsters?"

"But he'd have kept the briefcase, right?" Roscoe said.

"Maybe we aren't looking for the

briefcase," I said. "Yesterday, I drove miles and miles out to that stand of trees, but I hid in the field. A diversion, right? It's a habit. Maybe Joe had the same habit. Maybe he carried a briefcase but kept his important stuff in the garment bag. "

Roscoe shrugged. Wasn't convinced. We started walking down the service road. Up close, the Dumpsters were huge. I had to lever myself up on the edge of each one and peer in. The first one was empty. Nothing in it at all, except the baked-on kitchen dirt from years of use. The second one was full. I found a length of studding from some demolished drywall and poked around with it. Couldn't see anything. I heaved myself down and walked to the next one.

There was a garment bag in it. Lying right on top of some old cartons. I fished for it with the length of wood. Hauled it out. Tossed it onto the ground at Roscoe's feet. Jumped down next to it. It was a battered, well-traveled bag. Scuffed and scratched. Lots of airline tags all over it. There was a little nameplate in the shape of a miniature gold credit card fastened to the handle. It said: Reacher.

"OK, Joe," I said to myself. "Let's see if you were a smart guy. "

I was looking for the shoes. They were in the outside pocket of the bag. Two pairs. Four shoes, just like it said on the housekeeper's list. I pulled the inner soles out of each one in turn. Under the third one, I found a tiny Ziploc bag. With a sheet of computer paper folded up inside it.

"Smart as a whip, Joe," I said to myself, and laughed.