A Wanted Man (36 page)

Delfuenso asked, “What exactly does a CIA head of station do for a living?”

Reacher said, “He’s responsible for a chunk of foreign territory. He lives near and works out of its biggest embassy. He deals with defectors and runs the local agents who work for us.”

Then he said, “Or she.”

Delfuenso asked, “Are there any women CIA heads of station?”

“I have no idea. I was in the army.”

“Did you have female superiors?”

“Whenever fortune felt like smiling on me.”

“Local agents who work for us? What kind?”

“The usual kind. Foreign nationals who because of blackmail, bribes, or ideology betray their countries to us. Now and then the head of station meets with the most important of them.”

“How?”

“Just like in the movies. A lonely café, a back street, a city park, packages on the shelf in a phone booth.”

“Why do they meet?”

“The blackmailed need to hear the threats over again, and the bribed need their bags of money, and the ideologues need to be stroked. And the heads of station need to collect their information.”

“How often do they meet?”

“Could be once a week, could be once a month, whatever the individual agent needs.”

“And the rest of the time this guy is posing as a trade attaché?”

“Or a cultural attaché. Or anything else that doesn’t sound like very much work.”

“And this is Russia and the Middle East and Pakistan and places like that, right?”

“I sincerely hope so,” Reacher said.

“So why would a guy like that try to kill an FBI agent in Nebraska?”

Sorenson said, “He was an Arabic speaker. So maybe one of the Syrians from Wadiah had been one of his agents, back in Syria. Or maybe he still was. Maybe it was all to do with something they started overseas. But no Syrian came to that meet in the bunker, so maybe the CIA guy got suspicious. I mean, from his point of view everyone except his own guy is a bad guy, right?”

“Except that the CIA isn’t allowed to operate inside America.”

“Well, maybe it’s super-covert. Maybe they were going to terminate the guy. Because of unfinished business or something. They’re not going to share that with us.”

Delfuenso said, “But the guy could tell the difference between McQueen and his best Syrian buddy, right? Or what? If he couldn’t terminate the right guy, he might as well just go right ahead and terminate the wrong guy instead? Did I miss that on the CIA web site?”

Reacher said, “They weren’t going to terminate anyone. They wouldn’t send a head of station to do that. They have specialists. They call them wet boys. That’s who they would have sent. And a wet boy wouldn’t have brought his Boy Scout knife. He’d have brought an
altogether different kind of knife. And taken an altogether different kind of approach. We wouldn’t even have identified the dead guy yet. Not by fingerprints or face or dental work, anyway.”

Sorenson said, “OK, so it was just a regular meet. No drama. The CIA head of station was running his agent.”

“But his agent didn’t show. So why didn’t he just bullshit his way out of there? Why pull the knife?”

“Maybe he’s not a good bullshitter.”

“He’s a CIA head of station. There are no better bullshitters.”

“Maybe he knew McQueen from somewhere.”

“McQueen didn’t know him.”

“It doesn’t have to be a two-way street. So maybe the guy knew McQueen was FBI, and then he sees him inside a terrorist organization, in which case I guess most people are going to think
traitor
well before they think
undercover
.”

“So it was all an innocent accident? Mistaken identity?”

“Some things are simpler than they appear.”

Reacher nodded.

“I know,” he said.

Delfuenso said, “But none of this explains why a CIA head of station showed up posing as a member of a terrorist group. That’s who King and McQueen were sent to meet, don’t forget.”

“Maybe he was undercover too,” Sorenson said.

“The CIA isn’t allowed to operate inside America.”

“This is the modern world, Karen.”

“Two simultaneous undercover operations in the same place at the same time? What would be the odds?”

“Not too long,” Reacher said. “Not necessarily. All it takes is two people to get interested in the same interesting thing.”

“Would they use a head of station for that kind of work?”

“They might. He would be unknown back here. He’d have the skills. He’d be used to the life. He’d speak the language. As far as the paperwork goes, they might say he’s between postings.”

Delfuenso said, “If they killed my guy, I’d burn their house down. So why haven’t we heard from them?”

“You probably have,” Reacher said. “But not personally. Right now it’s probably still one-on-one, in some back room in Washington. Two old white guys in suits. With cigars.”

The clock in
Reacher’s head and the mileage boards counting down toward Kansas City showed they were going to beat their two-hour deadline by a decent margin. The trip was going to take an hour forty, or an hour forty-five, max. Not that there wouldn’t be a few extra miles at the end. The bad guys were unlikely to be hiding out in whatever the highway people took to be the exact center of the city. Reacher didn’t expect them to be holding their meetings in the lobby of a downtown hotel.

“It’s a suburban house,” Delfuenso said, like she could hear him thinking. “South of the city, and a little east.”

“How far out of town?”

“Maybe twelve miles.”

An hour fifty-three, he thought, door to door.

He said, “What kind of neighborhood?”

“Decent. And crowded.”

“That’s awkward.”

“Potentially.”

“But well chosen, I suppose.”

Delfuenso nodded at the wheel. “Wadiah is smarter than most of what we see.”

The Paris of the Plains
got a mile closer every forty seconds, and Sorenson asked, “What do you know about Peter King?”

Delfuenso said, “Where did you hear that name?”

“Reacher heard Alan King say it.”

Delfuenso glanced at Reacher in the mirror and nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “I remember that. And then he made the slip about a million and a half people living where he lived. Right after claiming he was based in Nebraska. Right after claiming he’d been driving three hours despite a full tank and bottles of cold water.”

Sorenson said, “We know Peter King moved from Denver to Kansas City, seven months ago.”

“You know more than you should.”

“Was his move a coincidence?”

“There are no coincidences. Not in law enforcement. You know that.”

“Is he a cop or an agent?”

“Why would he be?”

“I’m just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s all. He served his country.”

“Then sadly no, Peter King is not a cop or an agent.”

“Is he connected to Wadiah?”

“We think so.”

“How closely connected?”

“We think he might be their leader.”

“I see.”

“Because in terms of their organizational chart there’s only a couple of roles we can’t put a name to, and there’s only a couple of names we can’t assign a role to. One of those roles is leader, and one of those names is Peter King. So to connect the two seems like a fairly logical assumption.”

“With a brother he doesn’t talk to in the ranks?”

“He doesn’t talk to anyone in the ranks. Not if he’s the leader. That’s not how these cells operate. The leader talks to his trusted lieutenants only, two or three of them at the most. Then there’s a chain of command, rigorously compartmentalized, for security.”

“Even so, it’s still weird.”

Delfuenso nodded. “McQueen got to know Alan King pretty well. There’s some kind of strange sibling dynamic going on there. Alan is the kid brother. Or was, I should say now. Very needy guy. Always craving his big brother’s approval. Obsessed by the guy. Which is why he mentioned him last night, I guess. There was no other reason to. Apparently there was some unspoken issue, stretching back more than twenty years. Peter was holding Alan accountable for something. Some kind of lapse or betrayal or disgrace. In return Alan was always trying to prove himself. And McQueen got the impression Peter
wanted
Alan to prove himself. Like a redemption thing. Tough love, but love nonetheless. You know how it is with family. Blood is thicker than water, and all that kind of shit. From what we know about him, Peter is going to be mighty pissed that Alan is dead.”

“Which must be why McQueen is in trouble. Tonight of all nights.”

Delfuenso nodded again.

“Exactly,” she said. “Let’s hope he’s managing to convince him it was Reacher who did it, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.”

The plain west-east
Interstate that had run so serenely all the way through the state of Kansas splintered into a whole mess of beltways and thruways about ten miles short of the line. Delfuenso turned south, still on the Kansas side, and then she headed east again on a federal road with a new number, and they entered Missouri in the overtaking lane at ninety miles an hour, following a sign to a place called Lee’s Summit. But they turned north well before they got there, toward a new place called Raytown, but they never got there, either. They turned off before it slid into view, heading now north and west, into multiple acres of suburban sprawl backed by what Reacher took to be a large park. By day it might have been pretty. By night it was just a big black hole. By that point Delfuenso was driving slow and cautious, nosing the silent car through uncertain turns, pausing hesitantly, moving briskly through patches of light, slowing again in patches of darkness, as if unsure of her destination, or scared of it.

Reacher asked her, “Have you been here before?”

She said, “None of us has, except McQueen. Too soon for that. This phase of an operation is all about standing back and seeing what develops. But I’m copied on the file. I know the address. I’ve seen the house on Google Maps. So I know the general situation.”

The general situation was going to be American suburbia, plain and simple. That was clear. There were municipal sidewalks left and right, mossy concrete, heaved up here and there by tree roots, studded less often by city fireplugs. And Reacher could see houses, regularly spaced in lots, most of them modest, some of them small, a few
of them large, all of them dark and fast asleep. Most of them had white siding. Some were painted a color. Most of them were one-story, much wider than they were high. Some had eyebrow windows at the eaves, for upstairs bonus rooms. All had mailboxes and foundation plantings, and lawns, and driveways. Most had cars parked, at least one or two, or sometimes three. Some had children’s bikes outside, dumped and dewy, and soccer goals, or hockey goals, or basketball hoops. Some had flagpoles, with Old Glories hanging limp and gray in the still night air.

“Not what I expected,” Reacher said.

“I told you,” Delfuenso said. “A decent, crowded neighborhood.”

“Syrians don’t stand out here?”

“The pale ones say they’re Italians. The dark ones have been telling people they’re Indians. From the subcontinent. You know, Delhi and Mumbai and places like that. Most people can’t tell the difference. They say they work tech jobs in the city.” Then she slowed, and came to a stop on the curb. She said, “OK, I think we’re about two blocks away. How do you want to do this?”

Reacher had stormed houses before. More than once, less than twenty times, probably. But usually with a full company of MPs, divided into squads, some of them in back, some of them out front, some of them held in reserve in armored trucks with heavy firepower, all of them equipped with working radios. And all of them usually in places cordoned off and cleared of noncombatants. And usually with a bunch of medics standing by. He felt underequipped, and vulnerable.

He said, “We could set fire to the place. That usually works pretty good. They all come running out sooner or later. Except that McQueen could be tied up or locked in or otherwise incapacitated. So we better put one of us in the cellar door, if there is one, and one of us through the front, and one of us through the back. How are your marksmanship skills?”

“Pretty good,” Delfuenso said.

“Not bad,” Sorenson said.

“OK, you’ll have your guns up and out in front of you. Shoot anything that moves. Except if it’s me or McQueen. Use head shots for
certainty. Aim at the center of the face. Save rounds. No double taps. We’ll have the advantage for about four seconds. We can’t let it turn into a siege.”

Delfuenso said, “You don’t want to try a decoy approach? I could go to the door and pretend to be lost or something.”

“No,” Reacher said. “Because then after they shoot you in the head Sorenson and I will have to do all the work on our own.”

“Have you done this kind of thing before?”

“Haven’t you?”

“No, this is strictly a SWAT function.”

“It’s usually about fifty-fifty,” Reacher said. “In terms of a happy ending, I mean. That’s been my experience.”

“Maybe we should wait for Quantico.”

“Let’s at least go take a look.”

They slid out of
Bale’s car, stealthy and quiet, guns in their hands. They were the only things moving. Dark blue clothing, nearly invisible in the moonlight. They went single file on the sidewalk, instinctively six or eight feet from each other, the whole length of the first block, and across the street without pausing, at that kind of time in that kind of place more likely to come down with a rare disease than get run over by moving traffic. They walked the length of the second block, but slowed toward its end, and bunched up a little, as if discussion might be necessary. Delfuenso had said she knew the house from above, in two dimensions on the computer screen, and she had said she hoped she would know it in three dimensions on the ground. It was all going to depend on what the block looked like from the side. From a human’s point of view, not a satellite camera’s.

They stopped on the corner and Delfuenso peered up the street to their right. It rose on a slight slope, and then it dropped away again. The first few houses were visible. The rest weren’t.