Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor

We had to work like crazy. A million dollars in singles is a hell of a sight. You’ve got no idea. It was like trying to empty a swimming pool with a shovel.”
    “But Sherman was stealing, right?” I said.
    He nodded. I saw the flash of his steel glasses in the glow from the dash.
    “The money got counted properly in Venezuela,” he said. “I used to get accurate totals back after about a month or so. I used them to cross-check my weighing formula. Many times, we were about a hundred grand down. No way had I made that kind of mistake. It was a trivial amount, because we were generating four billion in excellent fakes at the other end, so who cared? But it was about a boxful every time. That would be a large margin of error, so I figured Sherman was stealing the occasional box.”
    “And?” I said.
    “I warned him off,” Hubble said. “I mean, I wasn’t going to tell anybody about it. I just told him to take care, because Kliner would kill him if he found out. Might get me into trouble as well. I was already worried enough about what I was doing. The whole thing was insane. Kliner was importing a lot of the fakes. He couldn’t resist it. I thought it made the whole thing way too visible. Teale was spending the fakes like confetti, prettying up the town.”
    “And what about the last twelve months?” I asked him.
    He shrugged and shook his head.
    “We had to stop the shipping,” he said. “The Coast Guard thing made it impossible. Kliner decided to stockpile instead. He figured the interdiction couldn’t last. He knew the Coast Guard budget wouldn’t stand it for long. But it just lasted and lasted. It was a hell of a year. The tension was awful. And now the Coast Guard’s finally pulling back, it’s caught us by surprise. Kliner figured it’s lasted this long, it would last until after the election in November. We’re not ready to ship. Not ready at all. It’s all just piled up in there. It’s not boxed yet.”
    “When did you contact Joe?” I asked him.
    “Joe?” he said. “Was that your brother’s name? I knew him as Polo.”
    I nodded.
    “Palo,” I said. “It’s where he was born. It’s a town on Leyte. Philippine Islands. The hospital was converted from an old cathedral. I had malaria shots there when I was seven.”
    He went quiet for a mile, like he was paying his respects.
    “I called Treasury a year ago,” he said. “I didn’t know who else to call. Couldn’t call the police because of Morrison, couldn’t call the FBI because of Picard. So I called Washington and tipped off this guy who called himself Polo. He was a smart guy. I thought he’d get away with it. I knew his best chance was to strike while they were stockpiling. While there was evidence in there.”
    I saw a sign for gas and took a last-minute decision to pull off. Hubble filled the tank. I found a plastic bottle in a trash can and got him to fill that, too.
    “What’s that for?” he asked me.
    I shrugged at him.
    “Emergencies?” I said.
    He didn’t come back on that. We just paid at the window and pulled back onto the highway. Carried on driving south. We were a half hour from Margrave. It was approaching midnight.
    “So what made you take off on Monday?” I asked him.
    “Kliner called me,” he said. “He told me to stay home. He said two guys would be coming by. I asked him why, and he said there was a problem at the Florida end and I had to go sort it out.”
    “But?” I said.
    “I didn’t believe him,” he said. “Soon as he mentioned two guys, it flashed into my mind what had happened down in Jacksonville that first week. I panicked. I called the taxi and ran.”
    “You did good, Hubble,” I said. “You saved your life.”
    “You know what?” he said.
    I glanced a question at him.
    “If he’d said one guy, I wouldn’t have noticed,” he said. “You know, if he’d said stay home, a guy is coming by, I’d have fallen for it. But he said two guys.”
    “He made a mistake,” I said.
    “I know,” Hubble said. “I can’t believe it. He never makes mistakes.”
    I shook my head. Smiled in the dark.
    “He made a mistake last Thursday.”

    THE BIG CHROME CLOCK ON THE BENTLEY’S DASH SAID MIDNIGHT . I needed this whole deal over and done by five in the morning. So I had five hours. If all went well, that was way more than I needed. If I screwed up, it didn’t matter if I had five hours or five days or five years. This was a once only thing. In and out. In the service