Page 25 of The Secret

The phone inthe Pentagon rang again at 3:13p.m. Eastern. Not a scheduled time for a call.

The guy who answered it listened, hung up, then dialed the number for Charles Stamoran’s private extension.

Stamoran answered after one ring. He said, “Go.”

The guy recited the message he had memorized a minute before. “Michael Rymer is dead. He drowned. His body was recovered fromthe lake behind his house at 11:38a.m.The security detail watching his house was alerted when they saw his boat run aground a couple of hundred yards from his dock. They investigated, found it empty, and called a rescue helicopter. An initial examination confirmed there was water in Rymer’s lungs. He had a bruise across his chest consistent with falling against the side of the boat, and there was chafing on his ankles consistent with getting tangled in a rope. There were ropes scattered all across the deck, so his death could have been accidental if he tripped, fell, and went overboard. Or the injuries could be coincidental if he had become despondent and jumped into the water in an attempt to commit suicide.”

Stamoran took the receiver away from his ear for a moment. Michael Rymer was the most fastidious man he’d ever met. There was no way he would have left ropes lying around on his boat. No way he would have gotten tangled in them and tripped. There was a zero percent chance of that happening. Which meant someone else had been on the boat. Someone who murdered him there. Stamoran felt an unexpected flash of relief. It only lasted a moment then a flood of guilt chased it away. It had occurred to him that if someone was in Colorado killing Rymer, they couldn’t be anywhere else tracking Pritchard down and forcing him to reveal his secret. Not yet, anyway.

Stamoran lifted the handset again. He said, “The second someone on the task force comes up with a name, I want it followed up. Vigorously. Resources are not an issue. I don’t want any stone, big or small, left unturned.”

—

At ten afterfive there was a knock on Reacher’s door. It opened before he said anything and Amber Smith, the FBI representative in the group, stepped into the room.

Smith tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and said, “I’m calling it a day. Going to head to the hotel. See what kind of a place they’ve stuck us in. Want a ride? Looks like you don’t have a vehicle with you.”

Reacher looked at the fax machine. No new pages had come out since he’d called the army’s National Personnel Records Center a couple of hours earlier and he couldn’t make any more progress without the list he’d asked for. He said, “Sure. Thank you.”

—

One of thecars had already gone by the time Reacher and Smith got to the parking lot. The black Impala. That left the two Crown Victorias. Kent Neilsen, the CIA guy, was leaning against one of them. The blue one. His suit was so crumpled it looked like he’d just been run down by it.

Neilsen said, “Either of you hungry? I am. I know a place near the hotel. How about we get squared away with our rooms then go and grab a bite?”

Smith shrugged. She said, “Don’t see why not.”

Reacher worked on the principle that you should eat when you can so that you won’t have to when you can’t. He said, “I’m in.”

Neilsen pushed himself away from the trunk of his car and made for the driver’s door. “Meet in the hotel lobby at six?”

—

The hotel wasa hair over a mile away from the office building. Reacher had spent more nights than he cared to remember in hotels. Mainly in the course of hunting down fugitives or digging up evidence or following leads. And mainly in places with rates that wouldn’t cause heart attacks when the army saw the bills. Which tended to define the kind of facilities the establishments had onoffer. It was fair to say he was used to his accommodations being on the plain and simple end of the scale. But the place the task force had picked was the equal of the blandest building he’d ever seen when it came to functional design. It had absolutely nothing that wasn’t one hundred percent necessary. It was four floors high, built of pale brick, with small windows and a flat roof. There was no cover above the entrance. No valet parking stand. Even the signs lacked illumination. They had to make do with reflective paint.

Smith turned into the lot, spun her Ford around, and backed into a parking spot near the building, next to Neilsen’s car. On the far side of the lot Reacher could see a line of much larger bays. The right kind of size for tour buses. He doubted they would be for rock bands or sports teams. So maybe for school parties, he thought. He had heard that it was common practice for kids to visit D.C. when they were in eighth grade. That seemed like a good idea. He’d learned about the nation’s capital when he was younger than that, but all the information came from the dog-eared pages of a book in a humid classroom on the other side of the world. That was fine for absorbing facts. Not so good for capturing scale and atmosphere.

They sailed through check-in without a hitch, so Reacher took his key and carried his bag to his room on the second floor. He used the stairs and as he was working the lock on his door he saw Smith emerge from the elevator. She had the room next to his.

Inside his room Reacher found that the bare-minimum approach had been maintained. The essential bases were covered. There was a bed. A dresser. A chair. A kind of flap attached to the wall that could be used as a desk, if you were desperate. A closet with hangers that were fixed to the rail to stop people from stealing them. And a bathroom with soap and shampoo in dispensers in brackets on the wall. Reacher guessed it would be cheaper to top them up a little than to provide fresh miniature bottles for every guest.

—

Neilsen was alreadywaiting in reception when Reacher got there at a minute to six. Smith caught up two minutes later and Neilsen started for the exit without saying a word.

Reacher said, “What about Walsh? The Treasury guy.”

Neilsen kept moving. “No idea. He was gone when we decided to leave the office and there’s no sign of his car outside. Guess he’s staying somewhere else.”

—

The bar Neilsenhad in mind was a couple of hundred yards from the hotel, heading farther away from the city. They decided to walk. It wasn’t the most pleasant evening. The air was heavy with exhaust fumes from all the traffic in the neighborhood and it had started to drizzle, but Reacher didn’t mind. He’d been cooped up all morning in trains and planes and cabs, and all afternoon in meeting rooms and offices, so he was glad to be able to stretch his legs.

The building they were aiming for had two floors. The higher level was shared between a nail salon and a wig maker. Two places Reacher had zero interest in visiting. The whole of the first floor was taken up with the bar. Its gimmick was that it looked like it was still under construction. A thick plastic sheet with a zipper down the center hung in the entrance in place of a door. The bar itself was made of scaffolding, with roughly formed shelves and nooks and niches for the bottles and glasses. The kitchen was on the other side of a wall with a jagged hole in it that was supposed to seem like it had been smashed with a sledgehammer. The tables were fashioned out of giant cable drums and instead of regular chairs there were a bunch of wooden crates.

Smith paused near the entrance. There were no other customers in the place. She said, “You sure about this?”

Neilsen looked serious. “Wait till you taste the food. And they make a mean Old Fashioned. Trust me.”

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