CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Thursday, January 13
6:20 p.m.
New York City
Otto had set up the meeting with Finlay before she left Detroit this morning. She’d intended to finish her New York City assignment earlier in the day. She’d had two goals at the time.
She’d wanted to talk to him about Reacher. He knew a lot more than she did. During a quiet, private conversation, she thought he might be more candid.
She’d also planned to find a way to bring up her career situation. Get his take on things. He had a proven track record for advancing women on the job. She wanted to move up, which might also mean moving out of the FBI. An idea that, until recently, would never have entered her mind.
She hadn’t planned to bring Gaspar with her. He didn’t like Finlay because he didn’t trust the man. Gaspar wasn’t wrong. But he had a blind spot where Finlay was concerned. She shook her head. Couldn’t be helped.
The taxi dropped them at the front entrance of the midtown hotel. Without stopping at the desk, Otto led the way to the elevator and pushed the elevator code he’d given her for the penthouse suite. The car paused briefly while security confirmed her identity and then lifted at breathtaking speed to the top floor.
His suite was directly across from the elevator. Otto stepped forward and pressed the doorbell. A man who could only have been Secret Service opened the door and waved them inside.
“Good evening, Agent Otto. Agent Gaspar. I’m Russell.” His greeting sounded rather formal to Otto’s ears. “He’ll be with you momentarily. Please follow me.”
The penthouse suite was enormous. Otto guessed the entire suite was more than 1,500 square feet. Four bedrooms, common rooms, and even outdoor space completed the pricey accommodations. Perhaps Finlay chose the suite for security reasons. Or maybe he simply enjoyed luxury.
Russell waved to a sideboard containing refreshments. “Dr. Finlay will be with you momentarily. He’s finishing a call. Please make yourselves comfortable.”
“I suppose the taxpayers are footing the bill for this,” Gaspar said sourly.
Otto didn’t bother to reply. No matter what she said, Gaspar’s mind was closed to Lamont Finlay, Ph.D. Otto had stopped trying to change the situation, partly because she didn’t know exactly what the source of the problem was.
Could have been his pedigree. Harvard grad, Boston born and bred. Gaspar wasn’t enamored of the northeastern section of the country.
Finlay was formerly the top cop in Margrave, Georgia, where their Reacher assignment began. Not coincidentally, Margrave was the place Reacher first surfaced after he left the army, too. Gaspar believed Finlay was involved in the crimes that took place there. But his opinion couldn’t be substantiated.
Or maybe the problem was Finlay’s current position as Special Assistant to the President for Strategy. Otto had no idea what that meant, and Gaspar was openly hostile about it.
The precise nature of Finlay’s job was nowhere described. He’d been selected by the highest-ranking civilian responsible for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and placed one heartbeat away from the U.S. Commander in Chief.
No watchdog kept tabs on him.
He reported seldom and only through verbal briefing. No paper trail so much as named the missions he’d undertaken. Process, performance, results, were also absent from the record.
Casualties, of course, were never acknowledged. She’d heard rumors. Unconfirmed.
Gaspar was opposed to all of it. Mainly what he didn’t like, Otto suspected, was Finlay’s undeniable power.
Like electricity, when properly harnessed Finlay might be useful. But she’d found nothing restraining him; not even his own word.
Was he friend or foe? Wiser to assume the worst, Gaspar said whenever the question came up. Even though they’d been the beneficiaries of Finlay’s power more than once.
Otto viewed Finlay as a kind of defensive line in whatever game the Boss was playing here. Growing up with brothers who played football had taught her the value of giants fighting play after play from the trenches.
As if her thoughts had conjured him, Finlay entered the room.
He looked like a spokesman for financial services. Tall, straight, solid; close-cropped hair slightly gray at the temples. Clean shaven. Well dressed. Everything polished to high gloss.
Distinguished.
Experienced.
Intimidating.
A black man, but his ethnicity was not African-American. The file said his grandparents had emigrated from Trinidad to New York before settling in Boston, but that was a long time ago.
“Good to see you again, Otto, Gaspar.” Finlay’s big paw swallowed her hand. He shook hands with Gaspar, too, but neither looked the other in the eye or offered false smiles. “Take a seat. I don’t have much time. I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of information to share, either.”
Gaspar raised an eyebrow in Otto’s direction as if to say, I told you so.
“Whatever you can offer, sir, is more than we have now,” Otto replied, taking the chair he’d indicated. Gaspar remained standing.
Finlay waited a moment for Gaspar to change his mind, and then shrugged and sat across from Otto. “We’re all chasing our tails on this latest TrueLeaks thing. There are millions of documents, and it’ll take a while to sort through it all. Most of it is military secrets, classified above your clearance level.”
“Which should tell us something about where the leaks came from, shouldn’t it?” Otto asked.
He leaned his forearms on his thighs and spoke more softly. “It should. Yes. And we’re chasing that down now. But we don’t know yet.”
“These leaks are putting a lot of good people at risk.” Gaspar frowned. “When you find the leaker, will he be prosecuted?”
Finlay shook his head. “That’s not my call.”
“What did you find out about that Reacher conversation? That’s the main thing we need to know,” Otto said.
“You didn’t give me much time. I was only able to locate the one conversation you already have. The one between Pauling and Brewer. Which was not easy. We wouldn’t have found a call that obscure for a few more weeks, at least. Not until we sorted a lot more wheat from the reams of chaff.” He wagged his head and flashed his bright white smile. “Gotta give credit where credit’s due. Cooper’s got his finger on the pulse of all things Reacher, doesn’t he?”
Otto lowered her gaze. Finlay’s tone and his words conveyed reluctant admiration for the Boss, which was curious. They usually mixed as well as pouring gasoline on a raging fire. Gaspar said neither Finlay nor Cooper could be trusted. He was probably right.
“Anyway, the rest of the news, not sure if it’s good or bad, is that using the one you already have, we were able to find another conversation,” Finlay said. “It’s the next day. Reacher made the call this time. To the woman, Pauling. Following up on the first call and scheduling a meeting. Brewer’s not involved in the second call.”
“Are you sure it’s Reacher?” Otto asked, as her stomach started its usual churn.
“Yes. He identifies himself.” Finlay nodded. “And it’s been a long time since I’ve talked to him, but I recognized his voice.”
“Can we get a copy of that call?” Gaspar asked.
Finlay shook his head. “But I can let you hear it if you keep that fact confidential for now.”
He meant if they didn’t tell the Boss. Otto said, “Of course.”
“Reacher made both calls to Pauling from the same pay phone. The original call was scooped up because she answered on her cell phone. The same phone where she’d received the call you already have. We searched for additional conversations between Reacher and Pauling made to or from her cell number.”
“Find any?” Gaspar asked.
“I’m afraid not. At least, not yet. Reacher’s a bit tech phobic, I think. He doesn’t talk on the phone much. Old school. Everything done in person.”
Otto nodded. “Smarter that way. Why do you think we’re here?”
Finlay grinned again. “Indeed.”
Gaspar asked, “So does that mean Pauling is the one who was being watched? She’s the common denominator in both calls.”
“I can’t say definitively. Not yet.” Finlay narrowed his eyes. “But that wouldn’t be an unreasonable hypothesis to try to prove out.”
Otto cocked her head. If Pauling was the one, then why was Treasury after Brewer? Unrelated? Not likely. “Are there more conversations between Pauling and Brewer?”
Finlay nodded. “A few. Some happened around the same time as the first one. Within a day or two. Others were much later. Weeks and months later, in some cases. We’re not sure how many conversations there are yet.”
Gaspar said, “And you can’t tell us why someone was targeting Pauling?”
“As I said, we don’t know that she was a target.” Finlay seemed to notice the thin platinum watch on his wrist all of a sudden, surprised at the time. He stood. “You can figure it out before we can sort through everything and find the answer. These things are usually not that complicated, you know.”
Otto and Gaspar rose to their feet. They shook hands all around again. Then Finlay looked at Otto. “Anything else you might want to discuss, I’ll be here another few days. And you have my number.”
Gaspar glanced at Otto, eyebrows raised.
She ignored him. “Thank you, sir.”
Finlay turned to leave. But before he went, he grinned again. “Oh, and we found your luggage. Good thinking, Gaspar, to send in those photos. We’ve got your driver in custody. Turns out he’s in the country illegally. Overstayed his visa. Claims he missed his window to renew. You scared him when you flashed your FBI badge.”
“Thanks for the help,” Gaspar said, but he didn’t sound very grateful.
“Lighten up.” Finlay smiled. “Now you don’t have to sleep in your underwear. That’s worth something, isn’t it?”
Otto watched his retreat down the polished corridor until he reentered the room he’d emerged from ten minutes ago.
Shortly afterward, Russell, the Secret Service agent, returned with a small playback device. He handed the earphones to Otto first. When she was ready, he pushed the play button.
A woman’s husky voice answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
Definitely the same voice Otto had heard on Pauling’s voice mail yesterday. But she sounded sleepy as if he’d awakened her very early in the morning.
It was definitely him. Otto recognized his voice right away, although she’d only heard him speak once before, on another recording.
His voice wasn’t what she’d expected that first time. The range was higher, for one thing. Tenor, not bass. His speech was clipped with a sort of nondescript Midwest American accent.
When she described it in her official reports, she’d said Reacher sounded less dangerous than she knew he was. Gaspar had speculated that his unruffled demeanor was how he got close to his targets. Otto disagreed.
The rest was a digitally altered scramble. Otto wondered what he’d said that was deemed classified by some tech somewhere.
They set up a meeting in Pauling’s office in half an hour. So Reacher knew where Pauling’s office was. And he’d met her there.
Something else, too. Even the first time they’d spoken to each other, their relationship was starting to sound a bit too, well, what? Friendly? Developed?
Reacher could flirt. Why did that come as such a surprise?
She shrugged. She glanced at Russell. “Can I hear it again?”
“Sure. Just hit the replay.”
She did. The second run through was no more enlightening than the first. “What’s bleeped out here?”
“The name of a civilian witness. Unrelated. The name is confidential unless someone seeks permission to unmask it. We haven’t.” Russell looked at her until she nodded understanding. She could get the names unmasked. Or at least, the Boss could. “Dr. Finlay said to tell you that Reacher mentions Brewer is the one who connected him to Pauling.”
Otto nodded. She passed the earphones to Gaspar.
He listened twice through. “This was the morning after the first conversation? The one we pointed you to?”
“That’s right,” Russell said.
Gaspar and Otto exchanged glances. She pulled out one of her cards. “If you find any more conversations involving or about Reacher, please call me.”
“I’ll let Dr. Finlay know. Your bags are this way.” Russell put her card in his pocket without looking at it and extended his arm toward the exit. Not the least bit subtle.
In the elevator, after the big gold doors closed, Gaspar grinned. “We just got what my dad would call the bum’s rush.”
Otto smiled, but her mind was elsewhere.
Gaspar took the hint. “Okay, why was Pauling a surveillance target and when did she become one?”
“Finlay seemed to think we could find that out easily enough. The only way I can think of to start is with Brewer. Try him again, will you?”
He found his cell phone and called Brewer’s number. After several rings, voice mail picked up, and Gaspar left another message.
“Earth to Suzie Wong.”
Otto glanced at him. “Sorry. Just a little preoccupied.”
“We’ve missed our return flights already.” He grinned. “Now that we have our jammies back, where will we sleep tonight?”
“Who said anything about sleeping?” She frowned. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
She was still thinking about Pauling. Why was she a target of a military corruption wiretap? Nothing in her background seemed to point in that direction.
And where was the woman? For that matter, where was Brewer?