The page-turning new Jack Reacher thriller from #1 Reacher makes his;way towards the entrance of a coffee shop. A young, stressed-looking guy in a suit brushes against him. Instinctively Reacher checks the pocket holding his cash and passport. There''s no problem. Nothing is missing. But later in the day he finds something new;has appeared;in another pocket. A cryptic note. Reacher figures the guy in the suit must have planted it during their brief contact. Impressed by the guy''s technique and intrigued by the message, he decides to find out more...

Autorentext

Lee Child is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher series and the complete Jack Reacher story collection, No Middle Name. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have been sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Lee Child lives in England and Wyoming.

Andrew Child, who also writes as Andrew Grant, is the author of RUN, False Positive, False Friend, False Witness, Invisible, and Too Close to Home. He is the #1 bestselling co-author of the Jack Reacher novels The Sentinel, Better Off Dead, No Plan B, The Secret, In Too Deep, and Exit Strategy. Child and his wife, the novelist Tasha Alexander, live on a wildlife preserve in Wyoming.

Klappentext

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Jack Reacher will make three stops today. Not all of them were planned for. The “blockbuster” (Esquire) new Jack Reacher thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child, featuring “the best villain yet” (USA Today)!

Don’t miss the hit streaming series Reacher!

First—a Baltimore coffee shop. A seat in the corner, facing the door. Black coffee, two refills, no messing around. A minor interruption from two of the customers, but nothing he can’t deal with swiftly. As he leaves, a young guy brushes against him in the doorway. Instinctively Reacher checks the pocket holding his cash and passport. There’s no problem. Nothing is missing.

Second—a store to buy a coat. Nothing fancy. Something he can ditch when he heads to warmer climates. Large enough to fit a man the size of a bank vault. As he pulls out his cash, he finds something new in his pocket. A handwritten note. A desperate plea for help.

Third—wherever this bend in the road takes him. Impressed by the guy’s technique and intrigued by the message, Reacher makes it his mission to find out more . . .

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Nathan Gil­mour knew things that other people did not.

People, like his coworkers at the Port Administration in Baltimore.

Things, like the fact that the recent death of one of those coworkers was not an accident, despite what the police report said. It was not an accident, and the man who had died was not the intended victim. Gil­mour himself was.

Gil­mour knew that he was the one who should have paid with his life. There was no doubt about it. And if he stayed where he was and kept on following his orders, the killers would realize they’d screwed up, too. They would correct their mistake. There was no doubt about that, either. So Gil­mour was left with no choice. He had to pull the plug.

Gil­mour was sitting alone in the cramped office. The only other desk was lost under a heap of bouquets of flowers. Most of them were beginning to wilt. The air was heavy with their scent. Their stench, Gil­mour thought. The stench of death. He began to breathe through his mouth and twisted his chair sideways to avoid the view out the window. He didn’t need to see the roof of the sagging white tent. It had been put up over the center of the spot where the shipping container had hit the ground after it fell from its crane. Or was dropped. The investigators were gone but the stain on the concrete was going to be there for months. Office gossip said the guy who had been crushed by the container wound up as flat as a piece of paper. Gil­mour had known the guy for five months. He had shared his workspace with him. Had come to like him. And ultimately had gotten him killed. He shivered and pulled a phone out of his pocket. A very basic one. He flipped it open and keyed in a message.

911. Need to meet.

     Gil­mour entered a number. He hit Send. Noted the time—­a minute after eleven in the morning—­and settled in to wait for a reply. There was no way he was going to get any work done that day. Or any other day, in that place. Or in any other place, if his gambit failed.

     The same time Nathan Gil­mour was sending his text, Jack Reacher was stepping into a coffee shop. It was a large place, bright and busy, just a stone’s throw from Gil­mour’s dockside office. Inside, it had exposed-­brick walls, oak floors, and three parallel rows of ornate iron pillars holding up the ceiling. An old warehouse, Reacher guessed. Solid. Built to endure. The kind of place that had outlasted the industry it had been designed to serve and was now onto its second lease on life. Reacher imagined that the upper floors would be converted into chic apartments as the neighborhood got gentrified, if they hadn’t been already.

     Reacher stood in line at the counter, ordered his coffee—­black, no sugar—­paid, and carried the mug to a small round table in the corner. Someone had left a newspaper, but that wasn’t why Reacher chose it. He settled there because it gave him a view of the whole room. He squeezed in behind the table and lowered himself onto the wooden chair. It wasn’t built for someone his size—­six foot five, two hundred fifty pounds—­and it wasn’t comfortable, but Reacher didn’t mind. He wasn’t planning to stay long. He had arrived in the city that morning on a Greyhound bus and would be leaving the same way either late that night or early the next day. He was there to catch a band he liked that was playing at a benefit for veterans. It was going to be an evening show, in the open air, it was late October, and Reacher didn’t have a coat. Buying one was next on his to­do list. He figured he would take a refill of coffee or two—­maybe three—­then when the quantity of caffeine in his system was restored to a satisfactory level he would move on.

     The coffee shop was three-­quarters full. A handful of the other customers were also on their own. Two of them were reading books. The others were tapping away on laptops. Six people were crowded around a table for four in the center of the space. The rest of the tables were taken by couples. Most of the couples were focused on each other, or on their phones, but Reacher saw that two pairs had a different dynamic. One duo couldn’t keep their eyes off the entrance. The man had a beard, neatly trimmed. The woman had black hair pulled back in a French braid. They were both smartly dressed, like they were there for some kind of special occasion, and the expressions on their faces flip-­flopped between anxiety and excitement. The final couple was watching them. They were older. Maybe in their late seventies. They looked pale and gray and hunched. Their clothes were worn and shabby and there was just a single mug between them on the table.

     Reacher finished his coffee, wriggled free of his table, and strolled to the counter. He got his first refill and as he turned back another person walked into the shop. A man, maybe in his mid-forties, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase. The smart couple that had been watching the entrance got halfway to their feet, the beginning of a smile taking hold on their faces. Then something about the newcomer’s expression hit them. Their smiles died a sudden death. They sunk back down onto their chairs. The…