Page 36 of Bulletproof Jack: Hunting Lee Child's Jack Reacher

“Does your gadget open this digital lock on the safe?” Kim asked.

“Maybe.” Russell approached the closet.

He punched a few buttons on the screen and then studied the safe.

It was the standard type often found in hotel rooms. Large enough to hold a laptop and a few other items along with it. Jewelry. Other electronics.

The safe’s door had a punch button keypad similar to a push button desk phone. Above the keypad was an LED screen to display.

At the moment, the display said, “locked” in red LED letters.

“I’ll give it a try. But this safe is old and pretty low tech. Probably installed at least twenty years ago. See if you can find the master code to unlock it online,” Russell said, kneeling near the keypad to get a better view. “Hell, we might get further just busting it open.”

He pulled the black device from his pocket and put the flat screen close to the keypad. He held it there as he’d done with the electronic door lock earlier. Nothing happened. The safe did not unlock.

He punched a few buttons on his device screen and tried again. The door remained locked.

Kim used her phone to search the internet. She found a video hack for opening the old safe on the first try. “Try this. Press and hold the lock button until the battery indicator comes on.”

“Okay. Got it. Now what?”

“Press zero until the word ‘Super’ appears,” Kim said, still reading the listed steps. “When it disappears, press in all nines.”

“Done,” Russell said. “Didn’t work.”

“Okay, try the sequence again. But this time, press all twos.”

Russell did as she’d asked. This time, the safe flashed the wordopenand the door unlocked. “That was easy.”

“Sometimes low-tech is the answer, I guess.” Kim grinned. “For these old systems, it’s better to find a hiding place in the room and rely on stealth.”

“Yeah, well you should have told Westwood that. His laptop is in here. A couple of zip drives. An unopened burner phone still in the plastic,” Russell said, pulling the laptop and the zip drives from the safe and handing everything to Kim.

“Guess he wasn’t in a huge hurry when he left, if he had time to stash stuff in the safe,” she said. “Probably also rules out someone forcing him to leave.”

Kim slipped the two zip drives into her pocket, carried the laptop into the common area and placed it on the table.

When she lifted the lid, the screen came to life. The display opened a web page Westwood must have been using when he closed the laptop. A page on the dark web.

Before she had a chance to examine anything else, Lucas’s cell phone rang.

Kim pulled it from her pocket.

She recognized Westwood’s number.

This time, she answered his call.

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Chapter 16

Friday, June 3

Niagara Falls, Ontario, CA

Westwood’s first words were, “Where is Lucas? Why hasn’t he called me?”

“We’re at your hotel, as promised. Lucas is not something to discuss now. Phone conversations can be overheard,” Kim replied reasonably. “Where are you?”

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