Page 24 of Cold Target

Near the entrance, Reacher spotted a pay phone. He fed it some quarters.

“Who are you calling?”

“Winthrow.”

She answered on the second ring.

"It's Reacher."

"What've you got?"

"We found our CI. Or at least, what’s left of him.”

There was a pause. "He’s dead?"

"Thoroughly.”

Another pause. Longer this time. "Where are you now?"

"Cadillac, Michigan. We followed a lead from the scene."

"What kind of lead?"

"A note we found. It led to a convention center where they host occasional gun shows. We didn’t find anything useful.”

"All right." Winthrow exhaled sharply. " You two need to stay put.”

Reacher didn’t argue the point. "Understood," he said.

"Good. I'll contact you tomorrow morning. Find a hotel. In the meantime, stay out of trouble."

She hung up.

Reacher stood there for a moment, phone in hand, staring at the civic center. Then he turned to Simmons.

"Orders are to stay put," he said.

Simmons looked at him. There was a long pause.

“Okay. East Bumfuck Hotel, here we come.”

PART THREE

11

Ivy Harper rubbed her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

The Treasury building was quiet at this hour as most people had gone home by seven. It was nearly nine now, and the silence had a weight to it, broken only by the occasional creak of the building settling or the distant hum of the HVAC system cycling through its evening routine.

She'd been going through the Miami files for the past three hours, cross-referencing account numbers and shell companies, trying to find the thread that would unravel the whole thing.

The work was tedious but necessary. Financial crimes were like that. You followed the money, one transaction at a time, until the pattern emerged.

Sometimes it took days. Sometimes weeks. But it always emerged eventually if you were patient enough and thorough enough.

Her desk was covered with printouts from the mainframe. Long sheets of green-bar paper with columns of numbers and codes, the perforated edges still attached. The paper had that distinctive smell of toner and processing chemicals.

Her terminal sat to her left, a boxy IBM 3270 with a black screen and amber text, the cursor blinking patiently, waitingfor her next query. The keyboard was heavy, mechanical, each keystroke producing a satisfying click that echoed in the empty office.