Tripwire

Victor Hobie. That name was underlined twice, with the casual strokes a pensive man uses while he is thinking hard. It was circled lightly with overlapping oval shapes, like eggs. Next to it, Costello had scrawled CCT?? There was a line running away across the page from CCT?? to a note saying 9am; 9am was circled, too, inside more oval scrawlings. Reacher stared at the page and saw an appointment with Victor Hobie, at a place called CCT, at nine o’clock in the morning. Presumably at nine o’clock in the morning of the day he was killed.
    He bounced the chair backward and scrambled around the desk. Ran back to the computer. The database listing was still there. The screensaver had not cut in. He scrolled the list to the top and looked at everything between B and D. CCT was right there, jammed between CCR&W and CDAG&Y. He moved the mouse and clicked on it. The screen scrolled down and revealed an entry for CAYMAN CORPORATE TRUST. There was an address listed in the World Trade Center. There were telephone and fax numbers. There were notes listing inquiries from law firms. The proprietor was listed as Mr. Victor Hobie. Reacher stared at the display and the phone started ringing.
    He tore his eyes from the screen and glanced at the console on the desk. It was silent. The ringing was in his pocket. He fumbled Jodie’s mobile out of his jacket and clicked the button.
    “Hello?” he said.
    “I’ve got some news,” Nash Newman replied.
    “News about what?”
    “About what? What the hell do you think?”
    “I don’t know,” Reacher said. “So tell me.”
    So Newman told him. Then there was silence. Just a soft hiss from the phone representing six thousand miles of distance and a soft whirring from the fan inside the computer. Reacher took the phone away from his ear and stared between it and the screen, left and right, left and right, dazed.
    “You still there?” Newman asked. It came through faint and electronic, just a faraway squawk from the earpiece. Reacher put the phone back to his face.
    “You sure about this?” he asked.
    “I’m sure,” Newman said. “One hundred percent certain. It’s totally definitive. Not one chance in a billion that I’m wrong. No doubt about it.”
    “You sure?” Reacher asked again.
    “Positive,” Newman said. “Totally, utterly positive.”
    Reacher was silent. He just stared around the quiet empty office. Light blue walls where the sun was coming through the pebbled glass of the window, light gray where it wasn’t.
    “You don’t sound very happy about it,” Newman said.
    “I can’t believe it,” Reacher said. “Tell me again.”
    So Newman told him again.
    “I can’t believe it,” Reacher said. “You’re absolutely, totally sure about this?”
    Newman repeated it all. Reacher stared at the desk, blankly.
    “Tell me again,” he said. “One more time, Nash.”
    So Newman went through it all for the fourth time.
    “There’s absolutely no doubt about it,” he added. “Have you ever known me to be wrong?”
    “Shit,” Reacher said. “Shit, you see what this means? You see what happened? You see what he did? I’ve got to go, Nash. I need to get back to St. Louis, right now. I need to get into the archive again.”
    “You do indeed, don’t you?” Newman said. “St. Louis would certainly be my first port of call. As a matter of considerable urgency, too.”
    “Thanks, Nash,” Reacher said, vaguely. He clicked the phone off and jammed it back in his pocket. Then he stood up and wandered slowly out of Costello’s office suite to the stairs. He left the mahogany door standing wide open behind him.
    TONY CAME INTO the bathroom carrying the Savile Row suit on a wire hanger inside a dry cleaner’s bag. The shirt was starched and folded in a paper wrapper jammed under his arm. He glanced at Marilyn and hung the suit on the shower rail and tossed the shirt into Chester’s lap. He went into his pocket and came out with the tie. He pulled it out along its whole length, like a conjuror performing a trick with a concealed silk scarf. He tossed it after the shirt.
    “Show time,” he said. “Be ready in ten minutes.”
    He went back out and closed the door. Chester sat on the floor, cradling the packaged shirt in his arms. The tie was draped across his legs, where it had fallen. Marilyn leaned down and took the shirt from him.
    “Nearly over,” she said, like an incantation.
    He looked at her neutrally and stood up. Took the shirt from her and