Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor

platemakers can achieve.”
    “So the paper would be difficult to copy?” I said.
    “Virtually impossible,” he said. “In a way, it’s so difficult to copy that even the official government supplier can’t copy it. They have tremendous difficulty just keeping it consistent, batch to batch, and they’re by far the most sophisticated papermaker in the entire world.”
    I ran it all through in my head. Press, plates, ink and paper.
    “So the paper supply is really the key to all this?” I said.
    Kelstein nodded ruefully.
    “That was our conclusion,” he said. “We agreed the paper supply was crucial, and we agreed we had no idea how they were managing it. That’s why I can’t really help you. I couldn’t help Joe, and I can’t help you. I’m terribly sorry.”
    I looked at him.
    “They’ve got a warehouse full of something,” I said. “Could that be paper?”
    He snorted in derision. Snapped his great head around toward me.
    “Don’t you listen?” he said. “Currency stock is unobtainable. Completely unobtainable. You couldn’t get forty sheets of currency stock, never mind forty million sheets. The whole thing is a total mystery. Joe and Walter and I racked our brains for a year and we came up with nothing.”
    “I think Bartholomew came up with something,” I said.
    Kelstein nodded sadly. He levered himself slowly out of his chair and stepped to his desk. Pressed the replay button on his telephone answering machine. The room was filled with an electronic beep, then with the sound of a dead man’s voice.
    “Kelstein?” the voice said. “Bartholomew here. It’s Thursday night, late. I’m going to call you in the morning and I’m going to tell you the answer. I knew I’d beat you to it. Goodnight, old man.”
    The voice had excitement in it. Kelstein stood there and gazed into space as if Bartholomew’s spirit was hanging there in the still air. He looked upset. I couldn’t tell if that was because his old colleague was dead, or because his old colleague had beaten him to the answer.
    “Poor Walter,” he said. “I knew him fifty-six years.”
    I sat quietly for a spell. Then I stood up as well.
    “I’ll figure it out,” I said.
    Kelstein put his head on one side and looked at me sharply.
    “Do you really think you will?” he said. “When Joe couldn’t?”
    I shrugged at the old guy.
    “Maybe Joe did,” I said. “We don’t know what he’d figured out before they got him. Anyway, right now I’m going back to Georgia. Carry on the search.”
    Kelstein nodded and sighed. He looked stressed.
    “Good luck, Mr. Reacher,” he said. “I hope you finish your brother’s business. Perhaps you will. He spoke of you often. He liked you, you know.”
    “He spoke of me?” I said.
    “Often,” the old guy said again. “He was very fond of you. He was sorry your job kept you so far away.”
    For a moment I couldn’t speak. I felt unbearably guilty. Years would pass, I wouldn’t think about him. But he was thinking about me?
    “He was older, but you looked after him,” he said. “That’s what Joe told me. He said you were very fierce. Very tough. I guess if Joe wanted anybody to take care of the Kliners, he’d have nominated you.”
    I nodded.
    “I’m out of here,” I said.
    I shook his frail hand and left him with the cops in the security office.

    I WAS TRYING TO FIGURE WHERE KLINER WAS GETTING HIS perfect paper, and I was trying to figure if I could get the six o’clock flight back to Atlanta if I hurried, and I was trying to ignore what Kelstein had told me about Joe speaking fondly of me. The streets were clogged and I was busy thinking about it all and scanning for an empty cab, which was why I didn’t notice two Hispanic guys strolling up to me. But what I did notice was the gun the leading guy showed me. It was a small automatic held in a small hand, concealed under one of those khaki raincoats city people carry on their arms in September.
    He showed me the weapon and his partner signaled to a car waiting twenty yards away at the curb. The car lurched forward and the partner stood ready to open a door like the top-hatted guys do outside the expensive apartment houses up there. I was looking at the gun and looking at the car, making choices.
    “Get into the car,” the guy with the gun said softly. “Or I’ll shoot you.”
    I stood there and all that was passing through my mind was that I might miss my flight. I was trying to remember when the next