Page 14 of Exit Strategy

‘What did they tell you to do?’

‘Stay in town. Forget about leaving.’

‘Doesn’t sound too difficult.’

‘That’s not all. They want me to keep on doing my job.’

‘Doing what?’

‘I work at the port. Pushing paper. Nothing exciting. Except … this guy I’m involved with – he wants information. I gave him some. Now he wants more.’

‘This guy. Who is he?’

‘I don’t know his name. He approached me a few weeks back. Things kind of went from there.’

‘The information he wants. It’s confidential?’

Gilmour nodded. ‘Commercially confidential. It’s not state secrets or national security.’

Reacher said, ‘What’s it about?’

‘Details of an incoming shipment. Its arrival date. Estimated unloading time. Storage location ahead of customs clearance. Now he wants updates because things like that can change. The ship could get stacked up outside the port. The unloading schedule could get derailed. The container could get diverted to a different holding zone. He wants to stay current.’

‘Why?’

‘We never discussed it explicitly. But I think it’s fairly obvious.’

‘He’s planning to steal this shipment.’

‘He never said so. Not in so many words. But yeah. Ican’t see any other reason. Either he’s going to steal it himself, or he’s selling the information to someone who will. I kind of think he’s selling it. He came off more as a fixer than a doer the one time I met him.’

‘You get the information from a computer?’

‘Obviously. This isn’t the nineteenth century.’

‘Then why does he need you to steal it? Why doesn’t he hack in from the outside?’

‘The port’s a strategic installation. It has a top-level firewall. I guess the guy doesn’t have the resources to break through it. He needs someone on the inside, old-school, hands-on, to help.’

‘And you’re okay with that? Helping to set up some kind of heist?’

‘What can I tell you? The world’s not a perfect place.’

‘What’s in the shipment?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who owns it?’

‘I don’t know that, either.’

‘How can you not know? You pulled a bunch of information off a computer. That must show the owner, the contents, all kinds of details.’

‘Right. The manifest says it’s a consignment of tables and chairs from Amritsar, India. The manufacturer is some little family-owned company. But that’s not relevant.’

‘The record’s fake?’

‘No. I’m sure it’s accurate. But no one steals furniture from India. It’s big and heavy and not very valuable. And if someone did steal some for any reason, the owner would claim it on his insurance. No need for any drama.’