Page 59 of In Too Deep

“Pretty much.”

“What’s the property company called?”

“Nechells Property Partners, LLC.”

“Could you make a document called something likeNPP false accounting tranche 2?”

“Easily.”

“Could it be empty?”

“Of course. Documents always start off empty.”

“OK. I want you to write an email with a pretty innocuous message.To whom it may concern, please see the attached file.Something like that. Add the empty NPP document. Just its icon. Address it to the finance desks at all the major papers. Set it to send in, say, three hours. And take a picture of it on the screen.”

“A screenshot?”

“If you say so.”

Paris got back to work but before she had anything to show Reacher, her phone began to ring. She checked the screen. She said, “Number’s blocked,” and passed him the handset.

Reacher hit the answer button and said, “Yes?”

The voice on the line said, “Who is this?”

“My name isn’t important. What I want is. And what I’ll do if I don’t get it? That’s critical.”

“You’re wasting my time. Tell me—”

“You saw the sample on your email. Unless I get what I want within three hours, the entire file will be sent to all the national newspapers.”

“And what do you want?”

“You, or someone you control, has taken three of my associates.You know the people I’m talking about. They are to be released. I’ll send you the coordinates of the place where they are to be left.”

“Three hours? That’s not possible. I—”

“No. We both know what happened last time. We gave you seventy-two hours. Our man didn’t return. We didn’t get paid.” Reacher pointed to Paris’s laptop. She nodded. “Look at your email. You’re about to receive a message. Look at it closely. You’ll see that the clock is already ticking. The only way to stop it is to release my people. You know where we live. You could call an airstrike on our position and it would make no difference. The email will be sent. Your life, and your company, will be destroyed. Any questions?”

There was only silence on the line.

Reacher said, “Good. Now for the full terms. Your guys are to leave a vehicle at the coordinates you will receive, within three hours. My people will be in that vehicle, safe and well. Your guys will drive away. If they do not have a second vehicle of their own, they can take the white Ford F-150 that will already be there. We don’t need it back. No one else will be present on-site, but we’ll be watching. Remotely. If you comply, the email will be canceled. If you don’t, you can look forward to public humiliation, bankruptcy, and a couple of decades in the Federal pen.”

—

Paris closed herlaptop and put it and the ledger and the strategy book in a bag she took from her wardrobe. Then she said she needed the bathroom before they got back on the road. Reacher told her he’d wait downstairs. But not out of any sense of modesty. Because he was half expecting her to climb down a drainpipe and make a break for her Land Rover.

Paris made her way down the stairs a few minutes later but shedidn’t head straight for the front door. She said, “Give me a minute, OK?”

Reacher said, “What is it now?”

“There’s something I need to do. In private.”

“What?”

“Say goodbye to Gibson. Fletcher stuck his body in our walk-in refrigerator. The unsanitary asshole.”

“You said you didn’t like Gibson. He was a snitch. You wished someone had killed him.”

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