Killing Floor

“It’s Reacher,” I said. “Open the damn door.”

There was a pause. Then the door opened. Finlay was standing there. I’d woken him up. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt and boxer shorts. I was amazed. I realized I had expected him to be sleeping in his tweed suit. With the mole-skin vest.

“What the hell do you want?” he said.

“Something to show you,” I told him.

He stood yawning and blinking.

“What the hell time is it?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Five o’clock, six, maybe. Get dressed. We’re going somewhere.”

“Going where?” he said.

“Atlanta,” I said. “Something to show you.”

“What something?” he said. “Just tell me, can’t you?”

“Get dressed, Finlay,” I said again. “Got to go.”

He grunted, but he went to get dressed. Took him a while. Fifteen minutes, maybe. He disappeared into the bathroom. Went in there looking like a normal sort of a guy, just woken up. Came out looking like Finlay. Tweed suit and all.

“OK,” he said. “This better be damn good, Reacher.”

We went out into the night. I walked over to the car while he locked his cabin door. Then he joined me.

“You driving?” he said.

“Why?” I said. “You got a problem with that?”

He looked irritable as hell. Glared at the gleaming Bentley.

“Don’t like people driving me,” he said. “You want to let me drive?”

“I don’t care who drives,” I said. “Just get in the damn car, will you?”

He got in the driver’s side and I handed him the keys. I was happy enough to do that. I was very tired. He started the Bentley up and backed it out of the lot. Swung east. Settled in for the drive. He went fast. Faster than I had. He was a hell of a good driver.

“SO WHAT’S GOING ON?” HE SAID TO ME.

I looked across at him. I could see his eyes in the glow from the dash.

“I figured it out,” I said. “I know what it’s all about.”

He glanced back again.

“So are you going to tell me?” he said.

“Did you call Princeton?” I asked him.

He grunted and slapped the Bentley’s wheel in irritation.

“I was on the phone for an hour,” he said. “The guy knew a hell of a lot, but in the end he knew nothing at all.”

“What did he tell you?” I asked him.

“He gave me the whole thing,” he said. “He was a smart guy. History postgrad, working for Bartholomew. Turns out Bartholomew and the other guy, Kelstein, were the big noises in counterfeiting research. Joe had been using them for background.”

I nodded across at him.

“I got all that from Kelstein,” I said.

He glanced over again. Still irritable.

“So why are you asking me about it?” he said.

“I want your conclusions,” I told him. “I want to see where you got to.”

“We didn’t get to anywhere,” he said. “They all talked for a year and decided there was no way Kliner could be getting so much good paper.”

“That’s exactly what Kelstein said,” I told him. “But I figured it out.”

He glanced over at me again. Surprise on his face. In the far distance I could see the glow of the prison lights at Warburton.

“So tell me about it,” he said.

“Wake up and figure it out for yourself, Harvard guy,” I said.

He grunted again. Still irritable. We drove on. We hurtled into the pool of light spilling from the prison fence. Passed by the prison approach. Then the fierce yellow glare was behind us.

“So start me off with a clue, will you?” he said.

“I’ll give you two clues,” I said. “The heading Joe used on his list. E Unum Pluribus. And then think about what’s unique about American currency.”

He nodded. Thought about it. Drummed his long fingers on the wheel.

“E Unum Pluribus,” he said. “It’s a reversal of the U.S. motto. So we can assume it means out of one comes many, right?”

“Correct,” I said. “And what’s unique about American banknotes, compared to any other country in the world?”

He thought about it. He was thinking about something so familiar he wasn’t spotting it. We drove on. Shot past the stand of trees on the left. Up ahead, a faint glimmer of dawn in the east.

“What?” he said.

“I’ve lived all over the world,” I said. “Six continents, if you count a brief spell in an air force weather hut in Antarctica. Dozens of countries. I’ve had lots of different sorts of paper money in my pocket. Yen, deutschmarks, pounds, lire, pesos, wons, francs, shekels, rupees. Now I’ve got dollars. What do I notice?”

Finlay shrugged.

“What?” he said.

“Dollars are all the same size,” I said. “Fifties, hundreds, tens, twenties, fives and ones. All the same size. No other country I’ve seen does that. Anywhere else, the high-value notes are bigger than the small-value notes. There’s a progression, right? Anywhere else, the one is a small bill, the five is bigger, the ten is bigger and so on. The biggest value bills are usually great big sheets of paper. But American dollars are all the same size. The hundred-dollar bill is the same size as the one-dollar bill.”

“So?” he asked.

“So where are they getting their paper from?” I asked him.

I waited. He glanced out of his window. Away from me. He wasn’t getting it and that was irritating him.

“They’re buying it,” I said. “They’re buying the paper for a buck a sheet.”

He sighed and gave me a look.

“They’re not buying it, for God’s sake,” he said. “Bartholomew’s guy made that clear. It’s manufactured up in Dalton and the whole operation is as tight as a fish’s asshole. They haven’t lost a single sheet in a hundred and twenty years. Nobody’s selling it off on the side, Reacher.”

“Wrong, Finlay,” I said. “It’s for sale on the open market.”

He grunted again. We drove on. Came to the turn onto the county road. Finlay slowed and swung left. Headed north toward the highway. Now the glimmer of dawn was on our right. It was getting stronger.

“They’re scouring the country for one-dollar bills,” I said. “That was the role Hubble took over a year and a half ago. That used to be his job at the bank, cash management. He knew how to get hold of cash. So he arranged to obtain one-dollar bills from banks, malls, retail chains, supermarkets, racetracks, casinos, anywhere he could. It was a big job. They needed a lot of them. They’re using bank checks and wire transfers and bogus hundreds and they’re buying in genuine one-dollar bills from all over the U.S. About a ton a week.”

Finlay stared across at me. Nodded. He was begi

“A ton a week?” he said. “How many is that?”

“A ton in singles is a million dollars,” I said. “They need forty tons a year. Forty million dollars in singles.”

“Go on,” he said.

“The trucks bring them down to Margrave,” I said. “From wherever Hubble sourced them. They come in to the warehouse.”

Finlay nodded. He was catching on. He could see it.

“Then they got shipped out again in the air conditioner cartons,” he said.

“Correct,” I said. “Until a year ago. Until the Coast Guard stopped them. Nice new fresh boxes, probably ordered from some cardboard box factory two thousand miles away. They packed them up, sealed them with tape, shipped them out. But they used to count them first, before shipping them.”

He nodded again.

“To keep the books straight,” he said. “But how the hell do you count a ton of dollar bills a week?”

“They weighed them,” I said. “Every time they filled a box, they stuck it on a scale and weighed it. With singles, an ounce is worth thirty bucks. A pound is worth four hundred and eighty. I read about all that last night. They weighed it, they calculated the value, then they wrote the amount on the side of the box.”

“How do you know?” he said.

“The serial numbers,” I said. “Showed how much money was in the box.”

Finlay smiled a rueful smile.

“OK,” he said. “Then the boxes went to Jacksonville Beach, right?”