Make Me

“Someone broke into my house. They took nothing, searched nothing, broke nothing, and left nothing. Which I didn’t understand at the time. I was working on a money-laundering issue. There was a lot of cash and a mazy chain of shell corporations, like always, but I had the guy. But it was a hard case to prove. Almost impossible, in fact. I was leaning toward forgetting it. There’s no point in recommending a prosecution if there’s no realistic way of winning it. And then the guy came to see me. I was literally on the point of telling him the file was about to be closed. But he spoke first, and he was two steps behind. He told me if I didn’t drop it right away he would claim I had taken a bribe, back at the beginning, to look the other way, but then later on I had changed my mind and stabbed him in the back. And kept the money anyway. He figured my work would be tainted, or even excluded, and he would walk.”

“People can say all kinds of things. How could he prove it?”

“He had set up a bank account for me in the Caribbean, in my name, and he wired the bribe money to it. It was right there, large as life. Real money, and a lot of it. It would corroborate everything he was claiming.”

“Except he opened the account, not you. There must be records.”

“He told me it was a woman who broke into my house. She took nothing, searched nothing, broke nothing and left nothing. But she used my land line. She opened the account for me, right there in my house, and it’s all over my phone bill. Which left me between a rock and a hard place. How could I prove I didn’t make that call? I figured maybe the foreign bank would have a recording, or the NSA, but two women’s voices might be hard to tell apart on a long-distance line, especially if she was trying to sound like me, which she probably was, because this was a very organized guy. He knew my Social Security Number, for instance, and my mother’s maiden name. That’s my security question, apparently.”

“So what did you do?”

“What he told me to. I dropped the case. Right away. I closed his file. But I was going to anyway. I think.”

“Where is the guy now?”

“Still in business.”

“What happened to the bribe money?”

“It disappeared. I traced it, like he knew I would. I found it in a shell corporation in the Dutch Antilles. Apparently I had purchased a minority position in a financial vehicle, as a long-term investment. He was the majority stockholder. We were tied together forever.”

“So what next?”

“I fessed up. I laid it all out for my SAC. I could see he wanted to believe me, but the Bureau doesn’t run on faith. And from that point on I would have been useless as an active agent. My testimony would have been automatically suspect, even years later. I would have been a defense counsel’s wet dream. As in, Special Agent, please tell us about the bribe you can’t prove you didn’t take. So I would have joined you in that radar hut in Alaska. In the middle of winter. It was a lose-lose. So I resigned.”

“That’s tough.”

“You win some, you lose some.”

“No, you win plenty, and then you lose one. No second chance.”

“I’m not unhappy doing what I’m doing.”

“But?”

“I don’t know how much longer we can keep on doing it. It doesn’t feel like a job for life.”

“It might have been, for Keever.”

“That’s very blunt.”

“What was his story?”

“Was?”

“OK, is.”

“I heard he was facing a third reprimand. The Bureau is very cautious, and he had a habit of rushing in regardless. No plan, no back-up. He was putting cases in jeopardy, they said. As well as himself and his fellow agents. A third strike would have qualified him for Alaska too. That radar hut would have been getting crowded. So he resigned, ahead of the hearing. I guess he thought it was the only dignified thing to do. And before you say it, sure, I agree, that’s probably what he did in Mother’s Rest. He rushed in, regardless. He didn’t wait for back-up.”

The waitress came by, with their plates of food, and with refills for their drinks. When she was gone Reacher said, “But Keever called for back-up. He got that far. We know that. Why call and not wait?”

Chang said, “Impatience? Urgency?”

“Maybe they got to him first. While he was waiting. Maybe he didn’t rush in.”

“That sounds like a public service message on behalf of hotheads everywhere.”

“We don’t know what happened.”

“I wish he’d rushed out.”

“Always a sound policy.”

“I bet you never did.”

“More times than I can count. Which is why I’m still here, having dinner with you. The chaotic universe. Darwinism in action.”

She paused, and said, “May I ask you a question?”

He said, “Sure.”

“Are we having dinner?”

“That’s what it said on the menu. Lunch was different, and this sure ain’t breakfast.”

“No, I mean having dinner, as opposed to grabbing road food.”

“As in candlelight and piano music?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Violin players and guys selling roses?”

“If appropriate.”

“Like a date?”

She said, “Broadly, I suppose.”

He said, “Honest answer?”

“Always.”