Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor

thirty-six hours before they could start shipping the stockpile out on Sunday.

    IT WAS TEN O’CLOCK WHEN I GOT BACK TO MARGRAVE . Thirty-five hours to go. I had spent the hour thinking about some stuff we had learned back in Staff College. We’d studied military philosophies, mostly written by those old Krauts who loved all that stuff. I hadn’t paid much attention, but I remember some big thing which said sooner or later, you’ve got to engage the enemy’s main force. You don’t win the war unless you do that. Sooner or later, you seek out their main force, and you take it on, and you destroy it.
    I knew their main force had started with ten people. Hubble had told me that. Then there were nine, after they ditched Morrison. I knew about the two Kliners, Teale, and Baker. That left me five more names to find. I smiled to myself. Pulled off the county road into Eno’s gravel lot. Parked up on the far end of the row and got out. Stretched and yawned in the night air. The storm was holding off, but it was going to break. The air was still thick and heavy. I could still feel the voltage in the clouds. I could still feel the warm wind on my back. I got into the back of the car. Stretched out on the leather bench and went to sleep. I wanted to get an hour, hour and a half.
    I started dreaming about John Lee Hooker. In the old days, before he got famous again. He had an old steel-strung guitar, played it sitting on a little stool. The stool was placed on a square of wooden board. He used to press old beer bottle caps into the soles of his shoes to make them noisy. Like homemade tap shoes. He’d sit on his stool and play that guitar with his bold, choppy style. All the while pounding on the wooden board with his noisy shoes. I was dreaming of him pounding out the rhythm with his shoes on that old board.
    But it wasn’t John Lee’s shoes making the noise. It was somebody knocking on the Bentley’s windshield. I snapped awake and struggled up. Sergeant Baker was looking in at me. The big chrome clock on the dash showed ten thirty. I’d slept a half hour. That was all I was going to get.
    First thing I did was to change my plan. A much better one had fallen right into my lap. The old Krauts would have approved. Tactical flexibility was big with them. Second thing I did was to put my hand in my pocket and snick the safety off the Desert Eagle. Then I got out of the opposite door and looked along the car roof at Baker. He was using his friendly grin, gold tooth and all.
    “How you doing?” he said. “Sleeping in a public place, around here you could get arrested for vagrancy.”
    I grinned a friendly grin right back at him.
    “Highway safety,” I said. “They tell you don’t drive if you’re tired. Pull off and take a nap, right?”
    “Come on in and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” he said. “You want to wake up, Eno’s coffee should do it for you.”
    I locked the car. Kept my hand in my pocket. We crunched over the gravel and into the diner. Slid into the end booth. The woman with the glasses brought us coffee. We hadn’t asked. She just seemed to know.
    “So how you doing?” Baker said. “Feeling bad about your brother?”
    I shrugged at him. Drank my coffee left-handed. My right hand was wrapped around the Desert Eagle in my pocket.
    “We weren’t close,” I said.
    Baker nodded.
    “Roscoe still helping the Bureau out?” he said.
    “Guess so,” I said.
    “And where’s old Finlay tonight?” he asked.
    “Jacksonville,” I said. “He had to go to Florida, check something out.”
    “Jacksonville?” he said. “What does he need to check out in Jacksonville?”
    I shrugged again. Sipped my coffee.
    “Search me,” I said. “He doesn’t tell me anything. I’m not on the payroll. I’m just an errand boy. Now he’s got me running up to Hubble’s place to fetch him something.”
    “Hubble’s place?” Baker said. “What you got to fetch from there?”
    “Some old papers,” I said. “Anything I can find, I guess.”
    “Then what?” he said. “You going to Florida too?”
    I shook my head. Sipped more coffee.
    “Finlay told me to stick them in the mail,” I said. “Some Washington address. I’m going to sleep up at Hubble’s place and mail them in the morning.”
    Baker nodded slowly. Then he flashed his friendly grin again. But it was forced. We finished up our coffee. Baker dropped a couple of bucks on the table and we slid out and left. He got into his patrol car.