Tripwire

tracing its curved path into the night air.
    The honor guard dispersed in the sudden silence and the American woman shook hands with the three Vietnamese officers and walked back to her car. The three Vietnamese officers walked in a different direction, back to theirs. It was a Japanese sedan, repainted a dull military green. The woman drove, and the two men sat in back. It was a short trip to the center of Hanoi. The woman parked in a chain-link compound behind a low concrete building painted the color of sand. The men got out without a word and went inside through an unmarked door. The woman locked the car and walked around the building to a different entrance. She went inside and up a short flight of stairs to her office. There was a bound ledger open on her desk. She recorded the safe dispatch of the cargo in neat handwriting and closed the ledger. She carried it to a file cabinet near her office door. She locked it inside, and glanced through the door, up and down the corridor. Then she returned to her desk and picked up her telephone and dialed a number eleven thousand miles away in New York City.
    MARILYN WOKE UP Sheryl and brought Chester around into some sort of consciousness before the thickset man came into the bathroom with the coffee. It was in mugs, and he was holding two in one hand and one in the other, unsure of where to leave them. He paused and stepped to the sink and lined them up on the narrow granite ledge under the mirror. Then he turned without speaking and walked back out. Pulled the door closed after him, firmly, but without slamming it.
    Marilyn handed out the mugs one at a time, because she was trembling and pretty sure she was going to spill them if she tried them two at a time. She squatted down and gave the first one to Sheryl, and helped her take the first sip. Then she went back for Chester’s. He took it from her blankly and looked at it like he didn’t know what it was. She took the third for herself and stood against the sink and drank it down, thirstily. It was good. The cream and the sugar tasted like energy.
    “Where are the stock certificates?” she whispered.
    Chester looked up at her, listlessly. “At my bank, in my box.”
    Marilyn nodded. Came face-to-face with the fact she didn’t know which was Chester’s bank. Or where it was. Or what stock certificates were for.
    “How many are there?”
    He shrugged. “A thousand, originally. I used three hundred for security against the loans. I had to give them up to the lender, temporarily.”
    “And now Hobie’s got those?”
    He nodded. “He bought the debt. They’ll messenger the security to him, today, maybe. They don’t need it anymore. And I pledged him another ninety. They’re still in the box. I guess I was due to deliver them soon.”
    “So how does the transfer actually happen?”
    He shrugged again, wearily, vaguely. “I sign the stock over to him, he takes the certificates and registers them with the Exchange, and when he’s got five hundred and one registered in his name, then he’s the majority owner.”
    “So where’s your bank?”
    Chester took his first sip of coffee. “About three blocks from here. About five minutes’ walk. Then another five minutes to the Exchange. Call it ten minutes beginning to end, and we’re penniless and homeless on the street.”
    He set the mug on the floor and lapsed back into staring. Sheryl was listless. Not drinking her coffee. Her skin looked clammy. Maybe concussed, or something. Maybe still in shock. Marilyn didn’t know. She had no experience. Her nose was awful. Black and swollen. The bruising was spreading under her eyes. Her lips were cracked and dry, from breathing through her mouth all night.
    “Try some more coffee,” she said. “It’ll be good for you.” She squatted beside her and guided her hand up to her mouth. Tilted the mug. Sheryl took a sip. Some of the hot liquid ran down her chin. She took another sip. She glanced up at Marilyn, with something in her eyes. Marilyn didn’t know what it was, but she smiled back anyway, bright with encouragement.
    “We’ll get you to the hospital,” she whispered.
    Sheryl closed her eyes and nodded, like she was suddenly filled with relief. Marilyn knelt beside her, holding her hand, staring at the door, wondering how she was going to deliver on that promise.
    “ARE YOU GOING to keep this thing?“ Jodie asked.
    She was talking about the Lincoln Navigator. Reacher thought about it as he waited. They