Tripwire by Lee Child Read Free Book Online Page B

his hook on the desktop and turned in his chair so the dim light from the window caught the good side of his face.
    “Well?”
    “We just got back,” the first guy said.
    “You get the information I asked for?”
    The second guy nodded. Sat down on the sofa.
    “He was looking for a guy called Jack Reacher.”
    Hobie made a note of the name on the yellow pad. “Who’s he?”
    There was a short silence.
    “We don’t know,” the first guy said.
    Hobie nodded, slowly. “Who was Costello’s client?”
    Another short silence.
    “We don’t know that either,” the guy said.
    “Those are fairly basic questions,” Hobie said.
    The guy just looked at him through the silence, uneasy.
    “You didn’t think to ask those fairly basic questions?”
    The second guy nodded. “We asked them. We were asking them like crazy.”
    “But Costello wouldn’t answer?”
    “He was going to,” the first guy said.
    “But?”
    “He died on us,” the second guy said. “He just upped and died. He was old, overweight. It was maybe a heart attack, I think. I’m very sorry, sir. We both are.”
    Hobie nodded again, slowly. “Exposure?”
    “Nil,” the first guy said. “He’s unidentifiable.”
    Hobie glanced down at the fingertips of his left hand. “Where’s the knife?”
    “In the sea,” the second guy said.
    Hobie moved his arm and tapped a little rhythm on the desktop with the point of his hook. Thought hard, and nodded again, decisively.
    “OK, not your fault, I guess. Weak heart, what can you do?”
    The first guy relaxed and joined his partner on the sofa. They were off the hook, and that had a special meaning in this office.
    “We need to find the client,” Hobie said into the silence.
    The two guys nodded and waited.
    “Costello must have had a secretary, right?” Hobie said. “She’ll know who the client was. Bring her to me.”
    The two guys stayed on the sofa.
    “What?”
    “This Jack Reacher,” the first guy said. “Supposed to be a big guy, three months in the Keys. Costello told us people were talking about a big guy, been there three months, worked nights in a bar. We went to see him. Big tough guy, but he said he wasn’t Jack Reacher.”
    “So?”
    “Miami airport,” the second guy said. “We took United because it was direct. But there was an earlier flight just leaving, Delta to Atlanta and New York.”
    “And?”
    “The big guy from the bar? We saw him, heading down to the gate.”
    “You sure?”
    The first guy nodded. “Ninety-nine percent certain. He was a long way ahead, but he’s a real big guy. Difficult to miss.”
    Hobie started tapping his hook on the desk again. Lost in thought.
    “OK, he’s Reacher,” he said. “Has to be, right? Costello asking around, then you guys asking on the same day, it spooks him and he runs. But where? Here?”
    The second guy nodded. “If he stayed on the plane in Atlanta, he’s here.”
    “But why?” Hobie asked. “Who the hell is he?”
    He thought for a moment and answered his own question.
    “The secretary will tell me who the client is, right?”
    Then he smiled.
    “And the client will tell me who this Reacher guy is.”
    The two guys in the smart suits nodded quietly and stood up. Threaded their way around the furniture and walked out of the office.
    REACHER WAS WALKING south through Central Park. Trying to get a grip on the size of the task he had set himself. He was confident he was in the right city. The three accents had been definitive. But there was a huge population to wade through. Seven and a half million people spread out over the five boroughs, maybe altogether 18 million in the metropolitan area. Eighteen million people close enough to focus inward when they want a specialized urban service like a fast and efficient private detective. His gut assumption was Costello may have been located in Manhattan, but it was entirely possible that Mrs. Jacob was suburban. If you’re a woman living somewhere in the suburbs and you