Persuader Part 54

I was a hundred yards from sh.o.r.e.

I could see the big house. I could see lit windows. I could see the wall. I could see the blue haze of its lights. I hauled my shirt up on my shoulders. It was soaked and heavy. I took a breath. Rolled onto my front and started swimming.

One hundred yards. Any kind of a halfway decent Olympic compet.i.tor could swim a hundred yards in about forty-five seconds. And any kind of a halfway decent high school swimmer could do it in less than a minute. It took me nearly fifteen. The tide was going out. I felt like I was going backward. I felt like I was still drowning. But eventually I touched the sh.o.r.e and got my arms around a smooth rock that was coated with freezing slime and held on tight. The sea was still rough. Big waves thumped in on me and smashed my cheek against the granite, regular as clockwork. I didn't care. I savored the impacts. Each and every one of them. I loved that rock.

I rested on it for a minute more and then crawled my way around behind the garage block, sloshing along half in and half out of the water, crouched low. Then I crawled out on my hands and knees. Rolled over on my back. Stared up at the sky. Now you had one come back, Harley.

The waves came in and reached my waist. I shuffled on my back until they reached only my knees. Rolled onto my front again. Lay with my face pressed down on the rock. I was cold. Chilled to the bone. My coat was gone. My jacket was gone. The Persuaders were gone. The Beretta was gone.

I stood up. Water sluiced off me. I staggered a couple of steps. Heard Leon Garber in my head: What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. He thought JFK had said it. I thought it was actually Friedrich Nietzsche, and he said destroy, not kill. What doesn't destroy us makes us stronger. I staggered two more steps and leaned up against the back of the courtyard wall and threw up about a gallon of salt water. That made me feel a little better. I jerked my arms around and kicked each leg in turn to try to get some circulation going and some water out of my clothes. Then I plastered my soaking hair back on my head and tried a couple of long slow breaths. I was worried about coughing. My throat was raw and aching from the cold and the salt.

Then I walked along the back wall and turned at the corner. Found my little dip and visited my hidden bundle one last time. I'm coming to get you, Quinn.

My watch was still working and it showed me my hour was long gone. Duffy would have called ATF twenty minutes ago. But their response would be slow. I doubted if they had a field office in Portland. Boston was probably the closest. Where the maid had been sent out from. So I still had enough time.

The food truck was gone. Evidently dinner had been canceled. But the other vehicles were still there. The Cadillac, the Town Car, the two Suburbans. Eight hostiles still in the house. Plus Elizabeth and the cook. I didn't know which category to put Richard in.

I kept tight against the house wall and looked in every window. The cook was in the kitchen. She was cleaning up. Keast and Maden had left all their stuff there. I ducked under the sill and moved on. The dining room was a ruin. The wind blowing in through the shattered window had caught the linen tablecloth and thrown plates and gla.s.ses everywhere. There were dunes of plaster dust in the corners where the wind had piled them. There were two big holes in the ceiling. Probably in the ceiling of the room above, and the room above that, too. The Brennekes had probably made it all the way out through the roof, like moon shots.

The square room where I had played Russian roulette had the three Libyans and Quinn's three guys in it. They were all sitting around the oak table, doing nothing. They looked blank and shocked. But they looked settled. They weren't going anywhere. I ducked under the sill and moved on. Came all the way around to Elizabeth Beck's parlor. She was in there. With Richard. Somebody had taken the dead guy out. She was on her sofa, talking fast. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but Richard was listening hard. I ducked under the sill and moved on.

Beck and Quinn were in Beck's little room. Quinn was in the red armchair and Beck was standing in front of the cabinet with the machine gun display. Beck looked pale and grim and hostile and Quinn looked full of himself. He had a fat unlit cigar in his hand. He was rolling it between his fingers and thumb and lining up a silver cutter at the business end.

I made it back to the kitchen after completing a whole circle. Stepped inside. I didn't make a sound. The metal detector stayed quiet. The cook didn't hear me coming. I caught her from behind. Clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged her over to a counter. I wasn't taking any chances after what Richard had done to me. I found a linen towel in a drawer and used it as a gag. Found another to tie her wrists. Found another to tie her ankles. I left her sitting uncomfortably on the floor next to the sink. I found a fourth towel and put it in my pocket. Then I stepped out into the hallway.

It was quiet. I could hear Elizabeth Beck's voice, faintly. Her parlor door was standing open. I couldn't hear anything else. I went straight to the door of Beck's den. Opened it.

Stepped inside. Closed it again.

I was met by a haze of cigar smoke. Quinn had just lit up. I got the feeling he had been laughing about something. Now he was frozen with shock. Beck was the same. Pale, and frozen. They were just staring at me.

"I'm back," I said.

Beck had his mouth open. I hit him with a cigarette punch. His mouth slammed shut and his head snapped back and his eyes rolled up and he went straight down on the three-deep rugs on the floor. It was a decent blow, but not my best. His son had saved his life after all. If I hadn't been so tired from swimming, a better punch would have killed him.

Quinn came straight at me. Straight out of the chair. He dropped his cigar. Went for his pocket. I hit him in the stomach. Air punched out of him and he folded forward and dropped to his knees. I hit him in the head and pushed him down on his stomach. Knelt on his back, with my knees high up between his shoulder blades.

"No," he said. He had no air. "Please."

I put the flat of one hand on the back of his head. Took my chisel out of my shoe and slid it in behind his ear and up into his brain, slowly, inch by inch. He was dead before it was halfway in, but I kept it going until it was buried all the way to the hilt. I left it there. I wiped the handle with the towel from my pocket and then I spread the towel over his head and stood up, wearily.

"Ten-eighteen, Dom," I said to myself.

I stepped on Quinn's burning cigar. Took Beck's car keys out of his pocket and slipped back into the hallway. Walked through the kitchen. The cook followed me with her eyes.

I stumbled around to the front of the house. Slid into the Cadillac. Fired it up and took off west.

It took me thirty minutes to get to Duffy's motel. She and Villanueva were together in his room with Teresa Justice. She wasn't Teresa Daniel anymore. She wasn't dressed like a doll anymore, either. They had her in a motel robe. She had showered. She was coming around fast. She looked weak and wan, but she looked like a person. Like a federal agent.

She stared at me in horror. At first I thought she was confused about who I was. She had seen me in the cellar. Maybe she thought I was one of them.

But then I saw myself in the mirror on the closet door and I saw her problem. I was wet from head to toe. I was shaking and shivering. My skin was dead white. The cut on my lip had opened and turned blue on the edges. I had fresh bruises where the waves had b.u.t.ted me against the rock. I had seaweed in my hair and slime on my shirt.

"I fell in the sea," I said.

n.o.body spoke.

"I'll take a shower," I said. "In a minute. Did you call ATF?"

Duffy nodded. "They're on their way. Portland PD has already secured the warehouse.

They're going to seal the coast road, too. You got out just in time."

"Was I ever there?"

Villanueva shook his head. "You don't exist. Certainly we never met you."

"Thank you," I said.

"Old school," he said.

I felt better after the shower. Looked better, too. But I had no clothes. Villanueva lent me a set of his. They were a little short and wide. I used his old raincoat to hide them. I wrapped it tight around me, because I was still cold. We had pizza delivered. We were all starving. I was very thirsty, from the salt water. We ate and we drank. I couldn't bite on the pizza crust. I just sucked the topping off. After an hour, Teresa Justice went to bed.

She shook my hand. Said good night, very politely. She had no idea who I was.

"Roofies wipe out their short-term memory," Villanueva told me.

Then we talked business. Duffy was very down. She was living a nightmare. She had lost three agents in an illegal operation. And getting Teresa out was no kind of upside.

Because Teresa shouldn't have been in there in the first place.

"So quit," I said. "Join ATF instead. You just handed them a big result on a plate. You'll be flavor of the month."

"I'm going to retire," Villanueva said. "I'm old enough and I've had enough."

"I can't retire," Duffy said.

In the restaurant the night before the arrest, Dominique Kohl had asked me, "Why are you doing this?"

I wasn't sure what she meant. "Having dinner with you?"

"No, working as an MP. You could be anything. You could be Special Forces, Intelligence, Air Cavalry, Armored, anything you wanted."

"So could you."

"I know. And I know why I'm doing this. I want to know why you're doing it."

It was the first time anybody had ever asked me.

"Because I always wanted to be a cop," I said. "But I was predestined for the military.

Family background, no choice at all. So I became a military cop."

"That's not really an answer. Why did you want to be a cop in the first place?"

I shrugged. "It's just the way I am. Cops put things right."

"What things?"

"They look after people. They make sure the little guy is OK."

"That's it? The little guy?"

I shook my head.

"No," I said. "Not really. I don't really care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things."

"You produce the right results for the wrong reasons, then."

I nodded. "But I try to do the right thing. I think the reasons don't really matter.

Whatever, I like to see the right thing done."

"Me too," she said. "I try to do the right thing. Even though everybody hates us and n.o.body helps us and n.o.body thanks us afterward. I think doing the right thing is an end in itself. It has to be, really, doesn't it?"

"Did you do the right thing?" I asked, ten years later.

Duffy nodded.

"Yes," she said.

"No doubt at all?"

"No," she said.

"You sure?"

"Totally."

"So relax," I said. "That's the best you can ever hope for. n.o.body helps and n.o.body says thanks afterward."

She was quiet for a spell.

"Did you do the right thing?" she said.

"No question," I said.

We left it at that. Duffy had put Teresa Justice in Eliot's old room. That left Villanueva in his, and me in Duffy's. She seemed a little awkward about what she had said before.

About our lack of professionalism. I wasn't sure if she was trying to reinforce it or trying to withdraw it.

"Don't panic," I said. "I'm way too tired."

And this time, I proved I was. Not for lack of trying. We started. She made it clear she wanted to withdraw her earlier objection. Made it clear she agreed that saying yes was better than saying no. I was very happy about that, because I liked her a lot. So we started. We got naked and got in bed together and I remember kissing her so hard it made my mouth hurt. But that's all I remember. I fell asleep. I slept the sleep of the dead.

Eleven hours straight. They were all gone when I woke up. Gone to face whatever their futures held for them. I was alone in the room, with a bunch of memories. It was late morning. Sunlight was coming in through the shades. Motes of dust were dancing in the air. Villanueva's spare outfit was gone from the back of the chair. There was a shopping bag there instead. It was full of cheap clothes. They looked like they would fit me very well. Susan Duffy was a good judge of sizes. There were two complete sets. One was for cold weather. One was for hot. She didn't know where I was headed. So she had catered for both possibilities. She was a very practical woman. I figured I would miss her. For a time.

I dressed in the hot weather stuff. Left the cold weather stuff right there in the room. I figured I could drive Beck's Cadillac out to I-95. To the Kennebunk rest area. I figured I could abandon it there. Figured I could catch a ride south without any problem. And I-95 goes to all kinds of places, all the way down to Miami.

Also by Lee Child

KILLING FLOOR

DIE TRYING

TRIPWIRE

THE VISITOR

ECHO BURNING

WITHOUT FAIL

PERSUADER