Extract: JR27: No Plan B by Lee & Andrew Child

This entry was posted on 14 November 2022.

Gerrardsville, Colorado. One tragic event. Two witnesses. Two conflicting accounts. One witness sees a woman throw herself in front of a bus – clearly suicide. The other witness is Jack Reacher. And he sees what really happened – a man in grey hoodie and jeans, swift and silent as a shadow, pushed the victim to her death, before grabbing her bag and sauntering away. The 27th book in the thrilling Jack Reacher series.

 


 

ONE

The meeting was held in a room with no windows.

The room was rectangular and it had no windows

because it had no external walls. It was contained

within a larger, square room. And the square room was contained

within an even larger octagonal room. Together this

nest of rooms formed the command hub of Unit S2 at the

Minerva Correctional Facility in Winson, Mississippi. Along

with its sister segregation unit, S1, it was the most secure

place in the complex. It was laid out with walls like the

concentric rings of a medieval castle. Designed to be impregnable.

From the outside, even if attacked by the most

determined rescuers. And from the inside, even during the

most extreme riot.

The safety aspect was welcome but the reason the hub had

been chosen for this meeting was its seclusion. The opportunity

it offered for complete secrecy. Because the rest of

Unit S2 was vacant. There were no guards. No admin staff.

And none of its hundred and twenty isolation cells were in

use. They weren’t needed. Not with the way the prison was

run under its current management. The progressive

approach was a cause of great pride. And great PR.

There were six men in the room, and this was the third covert

meeting they’d held there in the last week. The men were

spread out around a long, narrow table and there were two

spare chairs pushed back against a blank, white wall. The furniture

was made of bright blue polycarbonate. Each piece was

cast in a single mould, leaving no joins or seams. The shape

and material made the items hard to break. The colour made

it hard to conceal any parts that did somehow get smashed

off. It was practical. But not very comfortable. And all left over

from the previous administration.

Three of the men were wearing suits. Bruno Hix, Minerva’s

Chief Executive and joint founder, at the head of the

table. Damon Brockman, Chief Operating Officer and the

other joint founder, to Hix’s right. And Curtis Riverdale,

the prison’s warden, next to Brockman. The man next to

Riverdale, the last one on that side of the table, was wearing

a uniform. He was Rod Moseley, Chief of the Winson Police

Department. On the opposite side, to Hix’s left, were two

guys in their late twenties. Both were wearing black T-shirts

and jeans. One had a broken nose and two black eyes and a

forehead full of angry purple bruises. The other had his left

arm in a sling. Both were trying to avoid the other men’s

eyes.

‘So is there a problem or not?’ Brockman shrugged his

shoulders. ‘Can anyone say for sure that there is? No. Therefore

we should go ahead as planned. There’s too much at

stake to start running from shadows.’

‘No.’ Riverdale shook his head. ‘If there might be a

problem, that means there is a problem, the way I see things.

Safety first. We should—’

‘We should find out for sure,’ Moseley said. ‘Make an

informed decision. The key is, did the guy look in the envelope?

That’s what we need to know.’

No one spoke.

‘Well?’ Moseley stretched his leg out under the table and

kicked the guy with the sling. ‘Wake up. Answer the question.’

‘Give me a break.’ The guy stifled a yawn. ‘We had to drive

all night to get to Colorado. And all night again to get back

here.’

‘Cry me a river.’ Moseley prodded the guy with his foot.

‘Just tell us. Did he look?’

The guy stared at the wall. ‘We don’t know.’

‘Looking in the envelope isn’t definitive,’ Riverdale said. ‘If

he did look, we need to know if he understood what he saw.

And what he plans to do about it.’

‘Whether the guy looked is irrelevant,’ Brockman said. ‘So

what if he did? Nothing in there gives the slightest clue to

what’s going on.’

Riverdale shook his head. ‘It mentions ten a.m. on Friday.

Very clearly. The time, the date, the place.’

‘So what?’ Brockman raised his hands. ‘Friday’s an occasion

for joy and celebration. There’s nothing remotely

suspicious about it.’

‘But the photograph was in there.’ Riverdale jabbed the air

with his finger in time with each syllable. ‘Eight by ten.

Impossible to miss.’

‘And again, that means nothing.’ Brockman threw himself

back in his chair. ‘Not unless the guy actually comes here. If

he shows up on Friday. And even then we’d be OK. We chose

very carefully.’

‘We didn’t. How could we? We only had nine to pick from.’

A smile flashed across Moseley’s face. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? That

the one we picked really is innocent.’

‘I wouldn’t call it ironic.’ Riverdale scowled. ‘And there

weren’t nine. There were only five. The others had family.

That ruled them out.’

‘Nine?’ Brockman said. ‘Five? Whatever. The number

doesn’t matter. Only the outcome matters. And the outcome

is good enough. Even if the guy shows up, how close would

he get? He’d be a hundred feet away, at least.’

‘He doesn’t have to show up. He could see it on TV. Online.

Read about it in the newspapers.’

‘The warden has a point,’ Moseley said. ‘Maybe it would be

better not to draw so much attention this time. Maybe we

should cancel the media. We could float some BS about

respecting the inmates’ privacy, or something.’

‘No need.’ Brockman shook his head. ‘You think this guy

has a television? A computer? A subscription to the New York

Times ? He’s destitute, for goodness’ sake. Stop looking for

trouble. There isn’t any.’

 


“Hobo or millionaire, what kind of crazy person would travel halfway across the country because he read a few documents and saw an innocuous picture?”


 

Hix tapped his fingertips on the tabletop. ‘Media exposure

is good for the brand. We always publicize. We always have.

If we change now, we would only attract more attention.

Make people think something is wrong. But I do think we

need to know. Did he look?’ Hix turned to the guys in the T-shirts.

‘Best guess. No wrong answer. The chips fell where

they fell. We understand that. Just tell us what you believe.’

The guy with the broken nose took a deep breath through

his mouth. ‘I think he looked.’

‘You think?’ Hix said. ‘But you’re not sure.’

‘Not one hundred per cent.’

‘OK. Where was the envelope?’

‘In the bag.’

‘Where was the bag?’

‘On the ground.’

‘You put it down?’

‘I needed my hands free.’

‘Where was it when the car arrived?’ Hix said.

The guy with the sling said, ‘On the ground.’

‘In the same place?’

‘How could we know? I wasn’t there when Robert put it

down. Robert wasn’t conscious when I picked it up.’

Hix paused for a moment. ‘OK. How long was the guy

alone with the bag?’

‘We don’t know. Can’t have been long. A couple of minutes,

max.’

‘So it’s possible he looked,’ Hix said. ‘Glanced, anyway.’

‘Right,’ the guy with the broken nose said. ‘And the bag

was ripped, remember. How did that happen? And why? We

didn’t do it.’

Brockman leaned forward. ‘It was a crazy scene, from what

you told us. Wreckage everywhere. Total chaos. The bag

probably got ripped by accident. It doesn’t sound like some

major clue. And the other two haven’t reported that he

looked.’

The guy with the sling said, ‘They haven’t reported at all.

We don’t know where they are.’

Brockman said, ‘Must still be on their way back. Phone

problems, probably. But if there was anything to worry about

they would have found a way to let us know.’

‘And the guy didn’t mention anything about it to the police,’

Moseley said. ‘I’ve talked to the lieutenant over there a couple

times. That has to mean something.’

‘I still think he looked,’ the guy with the broken nose said.

‘We should pull the plug,’ Riverdale said.

‘That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,’ Brockman said.

‘We didn’t set the date. We didn’t pick the time. The judge did

when he signed the release order. You know that. We pull

some bullshit delaying tactic, we wind up ass-deep

in inspectors.

You know where that would land us. We might as well

shoot ourselves in the head, right here, right now.’

Riverdale scowled. ‘I’m not saying we delay. I’m saying we go

back to the original plan. The switch was always a mistake.’

‘That would solve Friday’s problem. If there is one. But

then we’d have no way out of the bigger jam we’re in. Carpenter’s

situation.’

‘I said from the start, the solution to that is simple. A bullet

in the back of his head. I’ll do it myself if you’re too

squeamish.’

‘You know what that would cost? How much business we

would lose?’

‘We’ll lose a lot more than money if this guy joins the dots.’

‘How could he do that?’

‘He could come down here. You said so yourself. He could

dig around. He was a military cop. It’s in his blood.’

‘It’s years since the guy was an MP,’ Moseley said. ‘That’s

what the lieutenant told me.’

Hix tapped the tabletop. ‘What else do we know?’

‘Not much. He has no driver’s licence. No employment history,

according to the IRS. Not since he left the army. No

social media presence. No recent photographs exist. He’s a

hobo now. It’s kind of sad, but that’s the bottom line. Doesn’t

sound like much to worry about.’

Brockman said, ‘Hobo or millionaire, what kind of crazy

person would travel halfway across the country because he

read a few documents and saw an innocuous picture?’

‘Speculate all you want, but this still worries me,’ Riverdale

said. ‘Each time we met, we thought we had the problem contained.

Each time, we were wrong. What if we’re wrong again

now?’

‘We weren’t wrong.’ Brockman slammed his palm into the

table. ‘We handled each situation as it came up. Ninety-nine

per cent.’

‘Ninety-nine. Not one hundred.’

‘Life isn’t perfect. Sometimes there’s broken glass to sweep

up. Which we’ve done. We found out there was a leak. We

plugged it, the way we all agreed to. We found out about the

missing envelope. We retrieved it, the way we all agreed to.’

‘And now this strange guy has looked in the envelope.’

‘He may have. We don’t know. But you have to admit, it’s

unlikely. He didn’t tell the cops. We know that. And he didn’t

tell the FBI or the Bureau of Prisons. We would know that. So

say he figured everything out from a couple of seconds alone

with the envelope. Why keep the knowledge to himself?

What’s he going to do with it? Blackmail us? And you think

he’s somehow going to schlep twelve hundred miles before

Friday? Come on.’

‘Gentlemen!’ Hix tapped the tabletop again. ‘Enough. All

right. Here’s my decision. We can’t know if the guy looked in

the envelope. It seems unlikely, so we shouldn’t panic. Particularly

given the consequences. But at the same time it

pays to be cautious. He’s easily recognizable, yes?’

The guy with the broken nose nodded. ‘For sure. You can’t

miss him. Six five. Two hundred and fifty pounds. Scruffy.’

‘He’s banged up pretty good, remember,’ the guy with the

sling said. ‘I took care of that.’

‘You should have killed him,’ Brockman said.

‘I thought I had.’

‘You should have made sure.’

‘How? Make it look like an accident. Those were our orders

for the other two. I figured they applied to this guy as well.

Hard to sell that story if I put a bullet in his brain.’

‘Enough!’ Hix waited for silence. ‘Here’s the plan. We’ll

mount surveillance. Round the clock. Starting now, through

Saturday. If he sets one toe in our town, we’ll be waiting. And

here, we don’t have to worry about how anything looks.’”

 

Extracted from No Plan B by Lee & Andrew Child, out now.

 

 

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