Foreign and Domestic: A Get Reacher Novel (18 page)

Lucas took a deep breath and continued, “The Rowleys aren’t cops, but they’re law enforcement.” He put his hands on his hips in a kind of cop stance and then asked, “Did you tell anyone you were coming?”

Cameron said, “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Did you?”

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

Lucas said, “That’s good because we need your help. And we can’t use it if you told anyone.”

Cameron said, “I’m going to ask again the same question I’ve been asking. What the hell’s going on here?”

Lucas turned to the right like an old turret rusty from a long-ago war—WWII, maybe. Then he swiveled from the hips and grabbed a picture from off of the desk. It was a six-by-nine-inch frame with bright blue edges. The picture inside showed two people in the foreground and a small crowd of people far in the background. It was another beach setting. Lucas reached out his short arm, watch turned upside down on his right wrist, not the left. He handed the picture to Cameron.

He said, “Look at it.”

Cameron took it from him and examined it. There was writing in permanent marker on the bottom edge of the picture. It looked like an autograph. The two people in the foreground of the picture were a man and a girl. The man was an attractive guy in good shape. He wore a red ball cap with a logo Cameron was not familiar with and a white T-shirt. Everything was wrinkle-free, and the cap looked brand new. The girl was a teenager. Probably fourteen years old. She had shoulder-length blond hair and a serious tan. Her hair was damp like she’d just been swimming. She had a huge smile, and her face glowed. Her features were young but very similar to Mrs. Rowley’s. She had the same kind of prominence about her, but the innocence of youth showed in her face and eyes.

Blue eyes, blond hair, and a tan. Mr. Rowley must’ve had a lot of problems with boys coming around for his daughter. Cameron closed his eyes for a moment and imagined Rowley’s daughter coming home with her first boyfriend and Rowley waiting for her with his Secret Service agents, his department-issued SIG Sauer resting on a table in plain sight of the suitor.

Cameron opened his eyes again and looked at the picture. Directly behind the pair was the yellow surfboard, but it was whole and not in pieces as it was now. Cameron wondered if she’d broken it purposely as some kind of statement or maybe just to make it a piece of art. He doubted that it had broken in an accident involving surfing. That scenario just didn’t seem realistic, but then again, Cameron knew nothing about surfing—and for three main reasons.

First, he had grown up in the top corner of Mississippi and had never lived close enough to surf to be drawn to the sport. Second, although Cameron didn’t have a known fear of water, he wasn’t all that fond of it, either, because he wasn’t too good of a swimmer. And third, he was far too tall to surf. Nature had blessed him with a few advantages and talents, but balancing his height on a board in the water wasn’t one of them.

Cameron looked at the girl in the picture and noticed something else—something he wasn’t expecting. Her right arm was missing. Not the entire thing, just from the elbow. Where her forearm should have run from where her elbow was and attached to a hand and then to fingers, there was nothing but emptiness.

Cameron read the autograph. It read, “To Raggie. Keep On! Love, Kelly Slater.”

He didn’t recognize the name Kelly Slater. He double checked through his memory but couldn’t recall hearing it before.

Lucas said, “That’s Raggie and some surfer. One of her heroes. World Champion Surfer. Raggie’s a surfer, too. She’s pretty good.”

Lucas choked up for an instant. It was the kind of choked-up feeling that only happened once or twice in the life of a hardened Secret Service agent, and it happened to Lucas at that moment. But he never lost composure. He never lost his cool. He just experienced a brief flash of humanity.

He said, “Raggie is the Rowley’s daughter.”

Cameron heard footsteps down the hall and on the stairs. They weren’t Li’s. She was too tiny to make audible steps. These were much heavier. Probably Cord’s or Graine’s, but Cameron wasn’t sure if Graine could find his way up the stairs with those Coke-bottle glasses. He figured it had to be Cord. And then he heard another set of footfalls on the stairs. They were lighter and probably belonged to Li as she followed her boss.

Cameron said, “She’s a surfer?”

Lucas said, “A damn good one. We three used to go watch her. I’ve seen her surf all over the world. I saw her in Australia, California, and South Africa.” He paused and then said, “We’ve all seen her.”

“What happened to her?”

Cord reached the room with Li behind him. He said, “She’s been kidnapped.”

Chapter 26

CAMERON STARED AT RAGGIE’S PICTURE AGAIN.
She was a young, beautiful girl with a bright future—no question. Any person with any kind of sense could see that just by looking at her face, her clean room, and her accomplishments. Cameron could feel the love in the house. Now Raggie was missing.
Kidnapped
was the word Cord had used.

A cell phone rang somewhere in the house, tightening the silence between them as they waited for someone to answer it. The phone was somewhere out past Raggie’s bathroom and down the hall and down the stairs. The sound bounced off of the walls and carried throughout the house, coming into existence like a screaming newborn. First, it wasn’t there, and then it was.

It rang twice before it was picked it up. Cameron doubted it was Mrs. Rowley who had answered since the information he’d just received let him know exactly why she looked as though she had been crying recently and explained why she hadn’t cleaned her face. Most likely every time she washed the eyeliner off of her face and reapplied it, she started crying again, causing more streaking makeup. So why continue to clean it?

Cameron said, “So where’s the FBI?”

Cord said, “We haven’t told them.”

“But this is their bag. The FBI should’ve been your first phone call.”

Cord nodded and clasped his hands together by his stomach. He looked at Lucas, whose hands were clamped together under his extended gut, fingers interlocked. Some kind of bodyguard stance, Cameron figured, and from the looks of Lucas, he’d had a lot of assignments standing sentry duty in his career. Cameron was a guy born into a life of law enforcement. He’d spent time discovering things and learning how to investigate crimes, but he’d never had much experience guarding people. He was sure he had inherited a gene somewhere from deep down in his family history and had the instincts to protect, but specific training in protection wasn’t something he had any experience in. He was only nineteen after all.

Lucas said nothing, but Li said, “So why haven’t we called the FBI yet?”

Cameron said, “Because there’s more to it. Something involving Jack Reacher.”

“That’s right. Follow me. Rowley is going to call us in a minute,” said Cord.

He stepped back and turned and led Cameron and Li back down the hall. They turned a wide corner and stepped onto a landing with a bedroom entrance. The door was open.

The room was large. It was the master suite for sure. Cameron looked around. The ceilings in the space were higher than those on the rest of the floor, almost twice the height. Everything in the room was clean and polished and gleaming. The furniture was eclectic with a heavy emphasis on dark wood. A full-length mirror stood framed on the wall next to another doorway, which Cameron thought probably led to the master bath.

Cord waited at the door for the others to enter and then closed it. He said, “I don’t want Claire to hear this. She can’t know what we know.”

Cameron stayed quiet.

Li waited, her eyes locked on her boss.

Cord took out his smartphone and pushed a little button at the bottom. A small kickstand whipped out, and he set the phone down on the dresser. He said, “Open Skype.”

The phone responded in a generic female voice and opened a blue application called Skype. Cameron had heard of it, but he’d never used it before. Li, Cord, and Lucas faced the phone screen and watched as the application came up.

Cord said, “Call Gibson.”

The phone made a notification sound, and Cameron waited.

The Skype application rang for a moment and then the screen showed a face. It was Gibson Rowley. Two things about him were remarkable to Cameron. The first was how young he was, in years, to be the director of the United States Secret Service, and the second was how old his face was. It reminded Cameron of the current president. The guy had been one of the youngest presidents ever elected, but in the last seven years, the job had robbed him of his youth.

Cameron wasn’t much on American politics. You vote here. You vote there. Election cycles came and went. Politicians said one thing and then did another. And still American life went on and on—nothing ever changed. None of that interested Cameron. In Cameron’s world, things were as they were. He went where he wanted, and he did what he wanted, and he bothered no one.

Gibson Rowley was younger than Cord. Maybe a good amount, but less than ten years, he’d guess. The two men had exchanged only a couple of words to each other in front of Cameron, but already he sensed a camaraderie there—like brothers or soldiers.

Rowley had a five o'clock shadow, and behind him was a slew of people. Some looked like Secret Service, but for the most part, all Cameron saw was office workers. They were all finely dressed and moving about in a slow hurry—like everything was important but not urgent. Cameron couldn’t figure out the layout of the office they were in, but it was unusual. They moved in tight quarters. And then Cameron noticed that one guy in the distance looked familiar. It was his profile. The guy didn’t look at the camera, but Cameron wouldn’t have expected he would because Rowley had been on his cellphone or computer screen or tablet, and it was considered rude to look in on someone else’s business when they were in the middle of a conversation. It’d be like listening in on someone's phone conversation in public. On the one hand, they were in a public place, and a finders keepers mentality seemed to hold a certain jurisdiction in public places nowadays. On the other hand, however, when someone was on a phone in public, whispering to someone on the other end, it was obviously a private conversation, and it was considered rude to eavesdrop.

Rowley said, “Sean.”

Cord said, “It’s me. I’m here with Cameron.”

“Mr. Cameron?” Rowley asked.

Cameron said, “Yeah. I’m here.”

Rowley said, “I’m sorry to have to put you in this position. Has Cord explained to you what’s going on?”

Cord said, “I told him about Raggie, but that’s all.”

Cameron said, “I’m sorry about your daughter, but what does this have to do with me?”

“You’ve gotta understand something,” Rowley said. “Five years ago, I joined the United States Secret Service, and two years ago, I became a special agent in charge of the protection detail of the first family. And last year, I took over as director.” Rowley paused a beat. “But thirteen years ago, I had a different job. A job I now I wish I hadn’t had.”

Cameron stayed quiet.

Rowley said, “Sean?”

Cord said, “Yep.”

“Take everyone and leave the room. Leave Cameron and me to talk. Alone.”

Cord started to voice an objection, but he stopped and looked at Li. She followed him, and they walked out of the room, leaving Cameron alone with the smartphone.

“Are they gone?”

“They’re gone.”

“You’re young. A lot younger than I thought.”

Cameron stayed quiet.

Rowley said, “I’m going to tell you a story. And then you’ll understand why I need your help.”

Cameron nodded.

Rowley said, “Thirteen years ago, I was in the United States Army. Special ops. I was a Captain for the Third Special Forces Airborne in Africa.”

Cameron said, “Green Berets.”

Rowley nodded and said, “We were stationed in West Africa, operating in continuing training exercises.”

“But?”

“But we weren’t doing just that—that was our public face. We were trying to help the rebels of a small country fight a war. Of course, our efforts weren’t enough. Not really.”

Rowley looked behind him to make sure no one was listening.

He said, “I was in charge of an elite unit. We were supporting a CIA op. Or rather, they were supporting us because we were doing all of the dirty work. We were there to help the rebels eliminate a target named Julian Sowe. He was the president of a little country called West Ganbola. A real son of a bitch. This guy would spend the country’s tiny budget on weapons from Iraq and Syria. He tested them on his own people. Gassed a hundred people once just for the hell of it. Not to mention he isn’t a friend of the United States.

“We were asked to help get the rebels into a small town called Sane which is basically just a weigh station between one slightly bigger town and another. Locals would use the river to travel because the jungles around that region are impenetrable. We had intel that Sowe and a small force of men were traveling by way of the river, so we choppered in at night and met a small band of rebels outside of the town—including their leader, a guy named Chang, who wasn’t a very nice guy, either, but enemy of my enemy and all.

“We were supposed to set up and wait for Sowe and his men. A simple ambush. Chang wanted to kill Sowe himself. Some kind of symbolic gesture to show his men he meant business, I guess. I don’t know. I didn’t think of him as some sort of revolutionary. He was just one bad guy trying to overthrow a worse one. I don’t go for that sort of thing, but it was our job.

“Anyway, when we got there, we were the ones who were ambushed.”

Rowley paused and stood up. He put his finger to his lips as if to tell Cameron to stay quiet. Then he walked past a group of people, and Cameron could see that he was on a plane. Cameron saw the windows, the chairs, and the curved interior. He saw some agents seated, some standing. He realized the plane must be Air Force One. On what other aircraft would the Director of the Secret Service be where busy people worked at desks and milled about in the background?

Rowley went into a room and said to a couple of staffers, “Please clear out for a minute,” and they started to pick up the papers and belongings scattered across a small white table. “Leave the papers. I’ll just be a minute.”

They obeyed and left the room.

Rowley waited for the door to shut, and then he said, “Chang’s men turned on him. Not all of them, but most. They shot the others, and a firefight broke out. As you may or may not know, in situations like that—situations where the mission was already over, and we weren’t supposed to be there—my priority as the CO was to get my men out alive. But if I thought there was a good chance to save the mission or our allies, I took it.

“We were outgunned and outnumbered big time. The local army came out of nowhere. Hundreds of them. They’d been stationed in the town, hiding for hours. We ended up cornered in a structure that was basically a two-story hut.”

Rowley took a deep breath. He inhaled and exhaled. He reached up with his left hand and loosened his tie.

Cameron saw his wedding band, gold with an engraving he couldn’t make out in that split second.

Rowley said, “The guys outside had us by the balls, but we had enough bullets to kill a lot of them. Soon the firefight stopped, and we were all still standing. Chang, too. It ended up just being him and us.

“There were five guys in my unit. Four of them I’d known for years, but one of them I’d only known for six months. He was a sergeant. When he joined my unit, he seemed okay—at first. But there was something about him. Something unsavory. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was there.

“The rest of the guys I knew. You’ve met them. Cord and Lucas joined me in the service. Graine was a cop in Missouri after, and now he’s retired. Haverly is dead. And then there was the sergeant—a guy named John Lane.

“So there we were…stuck in this hut. After a few minutes, the guys outside started to say something on a bullhorn. They repeated the same shit over and over for twenty minutes. None of us spoke the language—except for Chang, and he wouldn’t translate anything for us—so we didn’t understand a thing except for the word
American
.

“I remember being a little scared. Which is something I never told my guys. Not once. Not in ten years. But I was. I was a little scared that we were going to die. I was scared I’d never see my little girl again—she was only four years old at the time. And I’d been away from her and my wife for most of her life. I was scared I’d never see either of them again.”

Cameron heard a noise on the ledge outside the window. He looked over and saw a small bird pecking at the glass. It was white with brown feathers. He wasn’t sure about the species. It pecked again and cocked its head and then it flew away.

Rowley said, “There was no way out. We were dead men. Lucas tried to radio over-watch, but our comms were down. I told him to stay on it, but I knew it was hopeless.

“Finally, the ranting from outside stopped for a bit, and we wondered what was next. Then a voice spoke in English. The voice said that all they wanted was Chang. They told us if we gave him up, then we’d be free to go. We were never going to give him up, but at the same time, I wanted to see my daughter again, and I wanted to get my men out alive. We all wanted to get out alive.

“The voice continued to repeat the same deal. After about thirty minutes, a different voice came on, speaking more broken English, but it was the same message. Exactly the same. Like they were reading from a script.

“After an hour passed, the original voice was back again, and we waited. Not a peep from any of us. We just sat there, quiet.

“After an hour and maybe forty-five minutes, Lane started insisting that we give Chang up. He said he didn’t come to Africa to die. He started to say other things, too.”

Rowley paused and looked around the room. The staffers from earlier peeked in through the door, and Rowley said, “Wait! A little longer!”

The staffers jumped back out as fast as they had peeked in.

Rowley said, “After a while, he started to make sense. And then more sense. We were in a standoff for our lives. Sowe was smart. He could’ve had his men kill us. They could’ve blown us up with a couple of grenades, or they could have burned us to death. They could’ve done one of the two and been done with it. They could’ve killed us and left us charred and dead. We weren’t expected to check in for hours. We were dark, and they knew it, I think, because they never tried to enter the building. They just figured they’d outwait us.

“I wasn’t the first to agree with Lane. Cord was. I’m ashamed about it, but by morning, I was onboard. We all were. So we handed Chang over to those butchers. But it was worse than that. We took him hostage. I’ll never forget it. I nodded to the other guys, and they pointed their guns at him. Lane even shot him in the leg to disarm him. I didn’t authorize it, but he did it, and then we were all committed to the act. What was I supposed to do? Arrest Lane right there and then? And we were just as guilty.”

Cameron had listened quietly, but he said, “Wait.”

Rowley said, “I don’t have a lot of time.”

Cameron said, “Just wait. One second.” He closed his eyes and let his memory go back. He searched his memory banks for the name John Lane.

After a few moments of silence between them, he opened his eyes, and he knew the name. Lane was a name in his mother’s files, the ones she had left him regarding his father. Back in 2005 or 2006, Jack had been involved in an abduction case. Some guy’s wife went missing. According to Cameron’s mother, this guy was a bad guy. He was involved in all kinds of black ops in and out of Africa. He was Army and then went civilian but ran a mercenary outfit. He had contracts with the Pentagon as well as other more unsavory clients.

His name was Edward Lane.

Chapter 27

EDWARD LANE’S WIFE HAD BEEN KIDNAPPED—
both of them.

This had happened less than ten years ago. Cameron thought back to the report from his mother’s cell phone files. She had spent eighteen years studying all the cases across the country that had Jack Reacher’s special fingerprints all over them. Of course, she’d rarely gotten official confirmation that he was involved. Sometimes she’d get an officer on the phone from some obscure town here or there, and that officer would confirm that Jack had been there.

After tracking him for a while, she started to find patterns even though he wasn’t the kind of guy to leave traces or follow patterns. Nevertheless, there were patterns to be found. For example, some cases fell in diagonal lines across the United States like a giant X. Sometimes she found motel registries with the names of dead presidents. And sometimes she found them with dead baseball players. Jack had been using the names of dead people as aliases when filling out hotel registries.

Cameron’s mother believed that Jack had killed Lane and dumped his body somewhere in England. The last visible trace of Lane’s existence was a plane ticket to London he’d bought. He and his mercs had then rented rooms in some out-of-the-way inn. Some of them had returned without him. The last sighting of him, according to them, was in farm country. And then those guys had died not long after.

Cameron said, “Let me guess. John Lane had a brother named Edward?”

Rowley said, “Yes. How’d you know that?”

“And he’s the one who has taken Raggie?”

“That’s right? Do you know him?”

Cameron said, “Tell me the rest.”

Rowley said, “When we got back, we told our story. The brass listened. And we told the truth. At least I did as well as Cord and Lucas and Haverly and Graine. I don’t know what Lane told them, but whatever. It seemed that the brass wanted to blame someone, but they were facing two problems. The first was that this was a black op that no one wanted to be made public. Americans didn’t want to know that we were involved in secret missions in nowhere Africa. Truth was, we were only invested in the region because we were searching for proof of WMDs being sold throughout the region. And this guy Chang had information.”

Cameron said, “So he’d only help if we helped him?”

Rowley said, “Right. We scratch his back sorta thing.”

Cameron stayed quiet.

Rowley said, “Anyway, the Army decided there was nothing they could publicly do to Lane. They broke us up for a bit, and I never saw Lane again.”

“But that’s not the end of the story is it?”

“No. I had heard that the CIA wasn’t happy about what we had done. I also heard that Lane later went on another mission back into West Ganbola. Back into the jungle.”

“What happened?”

“He never came out. He went in on a forced rescue mission to get Chang back. A kind of penance for giving him up in the first place, I guess. My guys were lucky that the Army didn’t make us a part of it because Lane and his guys never came out again. I had no idea what happened to him or the other guys until he turned up here, calling me and taking my daughter.

“He said that he got ten years in prison—a vile and gut-wrenching prison. The government there used him as a symbol. Gave him a trial and all, but I forget the official charges. I heard that the CIA had intel that Lane might again be walking into an ambush.

“The rest of us were separated with nothing more than slaps on the wrist, but we remained friends. It was the last time I saw Haverly. He died later from cancer. He lived in Chicago. The others ended up joining me in the service later, except for McCadey. He went on to become a cop and also died later.

“You’ve met them all by now. The ones that’re left.”