Bad Luck and Trouble

things pick up again I’ll be on the phone begging him to come back, and he said he’d look forward to my call. That was the last I saw of him.”

    They got back in Dixon’s car and reversed away from the mirror glass. Reacher watched the Ford’s reflection get smaller and smaller.
    Neagley said, “Wasted trip. I told you we should have called.”
    Dixon said, “I wanted to see where he worked.”
    O’Donnell said, “ Worked is the wrong word. They were using him there, that’s all. They picked his brains for a year and then kicked him out. They were buying his ideas, not giving him a job.”
    “Sure looks that way,” Neagley said.
    “They’re not making anything there. It’s an unsecured building.”
    “Obviously. They must have a third place somewhere. A remote plant for manufacturing.”
    “So why didn’t UPS get that address, too?”
    “Maybe it’s secret. Maybe they don’t get mail there.”
    “I’d like to know what they make.”
    “Why?” Dixon asked.
    “Just curious. The more we know, the luckier we get.”
    Reacher said, “So go ahead and find out.”
    “I don’t know anyone to ask.”
    “I do,” Neagley said. “I know a guy in Pentagon procurement.”
    Reacher said, “Call him.”

    In his room in his Denver hotel the dark-haired forty-year-old calling himself Alan Mason was concluding his meeting. His guest had shown up exactly on time and had been accompanied by a single bodyguard. Mason had taken both of those facts as positive signs. He appreciated punctuality in business. And being outnumbered only two-to-one was a luxury. Often he was alone with as many as six or ten on the other side of the deal.
    So, a good start. It had been followed by substantive progress. No lame excuses about late delivery or lowered numbers or other difficulties. No bait and switch. No attempt to renegotiate. No jacked-up prices. Just the sale as previously discussed, six hundred and fifty units at a hundred thousand dollars each.
    Mason had opened his suitcase and his client had started the long process of totaling the consideration inside. The Swiss bank balances and the bearer bonds were uncontroversial. They had reliable face values. The diamonds were more subjective. Carat weight was a given, of course, but much depended on cut and clarity. Mason’s people had in fact underestimated in order to build in a horse-trading margin. Mason’s guest quickly understood. He pronounced himself entirely satisfied and agreed that the suitcase did indeed contain sixty-five million dollars.
    At which point it became his suitcase.
    In exchange Mason received a key and a piece of paper.
    The key was small, old, scratched and worn, plain and unlabeled. It looked like the kind of thing a hardware store cuts while a person waits. Mason was told it was the key to a padlock currently securing a shipping container waiting at the Los Angeles docks.
    The piece of paper was a bill of lading, describing the shipping container’s contents as six hundred and fifty DVD players.
    Mason’s guest and his bodyguard left, and Mason stepped into the bathroom and set fire to his passport in the toilet pan. A half-hour later Andrew MacBride left the hotel and headed back to the airport. He was surprised to realize that he was looking forward to hearing the jug-band music again.

    Frances Neagley called Chicago from the back of Dixon’s car. She told her assistant to e-mail her contact at the Pentagon and explain that she was out of the office, in California, away from a secure phone, and that she had an inquiry about New Age’s product. She knew her guy would feel better about responding by e-mail than talking on an unsecured cell network.
    O’Donnell said, “You have secure phones in your office?”
    “Sure.”
    “Outstanding. Who’s the guy?”
    “Just a guy,” Neagley said. “Who owes me big.”
    “Big enough to deliver?”
    “Always.”
    Dixon came off the 101 at Sunset and headed west to the hotel. The traffic was slow. Less than three miles, but a jogger could have covered them faster. When they eventually arrived they found a Crown Vic waiting out front. An unmarked cop car. Not Thomas Brant’s. This one was newer and intact and a different color.
    It was Curtis Mauney’s car.
    He climbed out as soon as Dixon got parked. He walked over, short, solid, worn, tired. He stopped directly in front of Reacher and paused a beat. Then he asked, “Did one of your friends have a tattoo on his back?”
    A gentle