Page 60 of The Secret

“The loans that Pritchard benefited from? They were all made by the same company. AmeriChem. So I also looked into it. Before SusanKasluga established it, she set up another corporation in Grand Cayman, with a partner out of the Virgin Islands. Its stated purpose was to compete for a contract to build a chemical plant in Pakistan. That was unsuccessful so the company was dissolved. Kasluga got her money out, and she also sued her partner. She came out of it with a huge settlement.”

“So was that good luck? Or bad luck?”

“It was another way to bring money into the country and also legitimize it. It happened right before the business with Pritchard and the foreign loans. And guess who one of the directors was? Charles Stamoran. Which isn’t illegal. He stepped down in ’79 when his political aspirations started to bear fruit. And AmeriChem has never had any iffy government contracts. But still. Given our suspicions…”

“You were right to be discreet. That was smart. And there’s that name again. Kasluga.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her name’s cropped up a couple of times recently. Maybe I’m just more tuned in to it, with everything that’s going on with Stamoran. Do you know anything about her? I bet there’s a file over at Treasury.”

“I don’t know about a file. I’ve read a few interviews with her, though. A few articles and profiles. She’s a major figure in the industrial world. A trailblazer. Her career path’s been almost flawless.”

“Almost?”

“She started small, grew enormous, and pretty much everything she touched along the way turned to gold. The only blip was when her company was still quite new. It got sued. Some issue with a product it was developing. Not unusual, really. I can’t remember the details. I could find more out though, if you’d like?”

“Definitely. Please do.”

“Give me twenty-four hours.”

“Perfect. Now, anyone hungry?”

Smith said, “Sure. But let’s find somewhere else to eat, OK? I don’t ever want to set foot in that wacky half-built bar again.”

Chapter22

Reacher was a fan ofsymmetry. Someone had left Neilsen’s body on a bathroom floor, so Reacher naturally wanted to leave that person’s body on the same bathroom floor. The problem was, that floor was in a hotel. And not only had Reacher moved hotels, breaking the potential pattern, but hotels have people in them. People hear things. They report things to the police. Like sounds. The kind that might get made if the guy who had killed Neilsen proved uncooperative. So when Reacher spoke toJohn Smithon the phone and told him he knew everything that Neilsen had known, he said he’d be waiting in an abandoned church, two miles outside the city, at 10:00p.m.that night.

Reacher got to the church at 8:00p.m.His golden rule of ambushes is to always get there first. That gave him the chance to learn the lie of the land. The old building was in a sorry state. Its roof was entirely missing. Some of its walls were crumbling. It had one stained-glass window left above what would have been the altar.Two parallel rows of columns ran alongside the overgrown nave. And there were a few disconnected stubs left where the buttresses used to prop the structure up from the outside. Reacher found a place where a heap of fallen masonry cast a good, deep shadow and settled in to wait.

Neilsen’s killer arrived at 9:00p.m.He was also early. Just not early enough.

Reacher considered himself a fair man. He made an effort to avoid jumping to conclusions. And he always gave his opponents the opportunity to surrender. Almost always. That night turned out to be one of the times he didn’t. Because from minute one the other guy made his intentions known. They were crystal clear. He had come prepared. He had a flashlight strapped to his head, like the kind miners wear on their helmets. He had brought a stepladder. And a rope. He fashioned the rope into a noose then took a moment to survey the ruin. He selected a surviving arch between a pair of columns. It was right where a pair of headlights would pick it out if someone arrived by car. A striking image, no doubt. Which was no doubt his intention. The guy was hoping to win the battle before the fighting even began.

The guy draped the rope around his shoulder and wrangled his ladder into place. He climbed three-quarters of the way up and started to swing the rope back and forth, preparing to toss the noose over the arch. He was looking up. Reacher emerged from the shadow. He inched forward, careful to avoid the debris and any loose stone slabs. He closed to within a couple of feet. Then leaned down, grabbed the base of the ladder, and jerked it into the air. The guy flew forward like a bike rider crashing over his handlebars. He hit the ground. His flashlight fell and landed pointing upright, casting weird shadows. He rolled, struggling for air. Reacher stepped forward and placed his foot on the guy’s neck.

Reacher said, “There’s one reason I haven’t crushed your larynx. Yet. You know what that is?”

The guy tried to squirm away. Reacher increased the pressure with his foot and said, “Because you need to be able to talk. So you can answer my questions. Ready? Here’s the first one. Did you kill Kent Neilsen last night?”

The guy stopped moving but he didn’t reply.

Reacher said, “I might not crush your larynx for a while, but you have plenty of other body parts.” He lifted his foot then stamped on the guy’s left hand.

The guy howled.

Reacher moved his foot back to the guy’s neck. “Tell me about Neilsen.”

“I was sent to kill him. I did. What’s to talk about?”

“Who sent you?”

“Same guy who sent me to kill the science freak. Don’t know his name. Haven’t worked for him very long.”

“How do you get your instructions?”

“Phone.”

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