Persuader

He had it tilted backward. I hoped the legs were strong. He wasn't a small guy. Eliot was on the end of the bed, like he had been in my room in Boston. Duffy had been sitting at the head of the bed. That was clear. The pillows were stacked vertically and the shape of her back was pressed into them.
    "Where did you look?" I asked her again.
    "The whole system," she said. "The whole Justice Department, front to back, which means FBI as well as DEA. And she's not there."
    "Conclusion?"
    "She was off the books too."
    "Which begs a question," Eliot said. "Like, what the hell is going on?" Duffy sat down at the head of the bed again and I sat down next to her. There was no other place for me to go. She wrestled a pillow out from behind her and shoved it in behind me. It was warm from her body.
    "Nothing much is going on," I said. "Except all three of us started out two weeks ago just like the Keystone Cops."
    "How?" Eliot said.
    I made a face. "I was obsessed with Quinn, you guys were obsessed with Teresa Daniel.
    We were all so obsessed we went right ahead and built a house of cards."
    "How?" he said again.
    "My fault more than yours," I said. "Think about it from the very beginning, eleven weeks ago."
    "Eleven weeks ago was nothing to do with you. You weren't involved yet."
    "Tell me exactly what happened." He shrugged. Rehearsed it in his mind. "We got word from LA that a top boy just bought himself a first-class ticket to Portland, Maine." I nodded. "So you tracked him to his rendezvous with Beck. And took pictures of him doing what?"
    "Checking samples," Duffy said. "Doing a deal."
    "In a private parking garage," I said. "And as an aside, if it was private enough to get you in trouble with the Fourth Amendment, maybe you should have wondered how Beck got himself in there." She said nothing.
    "Then what?" I said.
    "We looked at Beck," Eliot said. "Concluded he was a major importer and a major distributor."
    "Which he most definitely is," I said. "And you put Teresa in to nail him."
    "Off the books," Eliot said.
    "That's a minor detail," I said.
    "So what went wrong?"
    "It was a house of cards," I said. "You made one tiny error of judgment at the outset. It invalidated everything that came after it."
    "What was it?"
    "Something that I should have seen a hell of a lot earlier than I did."
    "What?"
    "Just ask yourself why you can't find a computer trail for the maid."
    "She was off the books. That's the only explanation." I shook my head. "She was as legal as can be. She was all over the damn books. I found some notes she made. There's no doubt about it." Duffy looked straight at me. "Reacher, what exactly is going on?"
    "Beck has a mechanic," I said. "Some kind of a technician. For what?"
    "I don't know," she said.
    "I never even asked myself," I said. "I should have. I shouldn't have needed to, actually, because I should have known before I even met the damn mechanic. But I was locked in a groove, just like you were."
    "What groove?"
    "Beck knew the retail on a Colt Anaconda," I said. "He knew how much it weighed.
    Duke had a Steyr SPP, which is a weird Austrian gun. Angel Doll had a PSM, which is a weird Russian gun. Paulie's got an NSV, probably the only one inside the United States.
    Beck was obsessed with the fact that we attacked with Uzis, not H and Ks. He knew enough to spec out a Beretta 92FS so it looked just like a regular military M9."
    "So?"
    "He's not what we thought he was."
    "So what is he? You just agreed he's definitely a major importer and distributor."
    "He is."
    "So?"
    "You looked in the wrong computer," I said. "The maid didn't work for the Justice Department. She worked for Treasury."
    "Secret Service?" I shook my head.
    "ATF," I said. "The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms." The room went quiet.
    "Beck isn't a drug dealer," I said. "He's a gunrunner." The room stayed quiet for a very long time. Duffy looked at Eliot. Eliot looked back at her. Then they both looked at Villanueva. Villanueva looked at me. Then he looked out the window. I waited for the tactical problem to dawn on them. But it didn't. Not right away.
    "So what was the LA guy doing?" Duffy said.
    "Looking at samples," I said. "In the Cadillac's trunk. Exactly like you thought. But they were samples of the weapons Beck was dealing. He as good as told me. He said dope dealers were driven by fashion. They like new and fancy things. They change weapons all the time, always looking for the latest thing."
    "He told you?"
    "I wasn't