Page 24 of Bulletproof Jack: Hunting Lee Child's Jack Reacher

Chapter 11

Friday, June 3

Cleveland, OH

Kim was already on her way to the door when Russell stood and tossed a few bills onto the table to pay the cook both for the food and the discretion. He followed her out into the crisply cool afternoon.

The Harrison Hotel was a few short blocks away.

Russell checked in while Kim waited. The hotel required proper authorization, and she had no way to acquire it. But Russell did. She tried not to focus on the reasons.

He waved her toward the elevators and they rode up to the sixth floor this time.

“I got a suite. We need more space,” Russell said, opening the door. “Wait here.”

Kim waited in the hallway.

“All clear,” he said, holding the door for her to pull her bags inside. He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Two bedrooms if we decide to stay.”

“Who knows we’re here?” Kim asked, chewing her lower lip as she glanced around the space.

“Not as many people as if we checked into any hotel using our personal credit cards. That said, Finlay could find out if he wanted to. So could Cooper, with a bit more digging,” Russell said. “But I doubt either of them have this place on their regularly watched radar. No reason to worry about it at the moment.”

“Okay. But as soon as we figure out where to go, we’re leaving.”

Kim unpacked her laptop and secure hotspot and connected to her server. She sent a secure text message to Gaspar asking for the results on Mr. X’s phone.

“Nothing yet,” was the instant reply. “Can you talk?”

Kim located the special encrypted burner phone she was currently using to connect directly to Gaspar and placed the call. He picked up.

“Are you alone?” he asked.

“Russell’s here,” she replied.

Silence. Gaspar didn’t trust Finlay and he wasn’t all that thrilled with Russell, either. Mainly because Russell was Finlay’s closest personal detail.

To Gaspar, talking to Russell was an open pipeline to Finlay.

Kim couldn’t argue with the logic, but she couldn’t wait forever, either. She put the call on speaker. “Russell knows about the dead man’s phone. Tell us what you have discovered so far.”

After a bit more silence, Gaspar stated his terms of engagement. “No questions about means and methods.”

Kim glanced at Russell for agreement. He nodded, and she said, “Understood.”

After another few moments of silence, Gaspar said, “It took a while, but we eventually isolated general locations for both numbers.”

“That’s more than we had before,” she said.

“Yes, but it’s not much. Both phones are encrypted burners. End-to-end encryption. Disappearing text technology.”

Kim frowned. “So our Mr. X was a lot more sophisticated than we’d hoped.”

“It gets worse,” Gaspar said. “The two phones, let’s call them Alpha and Bravo, are using commercial cell towers in busy areas, which makes them kind of like finding two needles in an arena-sized hay barn. Isolating dates and times for individual calls will be tedious work.”

Kim cocked her head. “You mean both phones wereonlyused in specific locations?”

“Not totally stationary, but they didn’t move around much. Which could be the good news,” Gaspar confirmed. “Bravo phone, the one you took off your dead Mr. X, was purchased in New York City only six days ago.”

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