Chapter 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, waiting for her next query. The keyboard was heavy, mechanical, each keystroke producing a satisfying click that echoed in the empty office.
Around her, the other desks sat empty, their surfaces cleared for the night. A few had left coffee mugs behind, or framed photos of families. The overhead lights cast everything in a flat, institutional glow that made it feel later than it was.
Through the window behind her, she could see the lights of DC and the Capitol dome illuminated in the distance, the Washington Monument rising like a pale needle against the dark sky.
She reached for her coffee mug and found it empty. Again. She'd need to make another pot if she was going to keep working, but the break room felt like a long walk right now, and she was close to something in the Miami files.
The phone rang.
The sound was jarring in the quiet. Ivy glanced at the clock on the wall—9:14 PM. Late for a work call. Most people who needed to reach her after hours had her pager number. A call to her desk phone at this hour meant either someone working late like she was, or something urgent.
She picked up the receiver.
"Harper."
"Ivy. It's Joe."
‘Hey, I thought you were gone for a while. Where are you?”
"Michigan."
"Michigan?" She frowned. "What are you doing in Michigan?"
"At the moment, not much," he said.
There was a pause. Long enough that she could hear background noise on his end—the faint sound of traffic, maybe a TV in another room. He was calling from somewhere public, or at least semi-public.
"We were supposed to meet a source today," Joe said carefully. "Someone got to them first."
Ivy understood immediately. The phone line wasn't secure. He couldn't say it outright, but the meaning was clear. The informant was dead. Probably murdered. And whoever killed them might still be in the area.
"So what now?" she asked. She'd worked with confidential sources before. You built relationships with them, relied on them, promised them protection. When something went wrong, it felt personal.
"That’s why I’m calling." Another pause. She could hear him breathing, could almost picture him standing in some dingy hotel room or gas station, trying to figure out his next move. "Listen, I need a favor. You have time to help me with some research? Without getting into trouble with Jenkins?"
"Of course," she said without hesitation. Then, because she needed to understand the situation: "What do you need?"
But before he could answer, another question occurred to her. "Why isn't the task force helping?" she asked. "Don't they have people for this?"
Joe was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was careful. "They do. But I need someone I trust. Either someone knew we were going to meet the outsource, or the timing was just a coincidence."
That told her enough. Clearly, Joe didn’t think it was random.
So, as a result, he was working outside official channels, or at least outside the immediate chain of command.
Maybe the task force had shut him down. Maybe he didn't trust them.
Maybe he just needed someone who would ask questions later and help now.
She didn't ask why. If Joe Reacher was doing it, he had a reason.
She'd worked with him long enough to know that.
"Okay, what do you need?" she asked, pulling a notepad closer and uncapping her pen.
"I have a name,” Joe said. “It might be a weapon, a weapon manufacturer, a location or a person. The name is,” and he said it carefully, “Volkov. V-O-L-K-O-V."
Ivy wrote it down in block letters, underlining it twice. “Got it. Where are you right now?"
"Small hotel in northern Michigan," Joe said. "Middle of nowhere. No real way to do research from here."
Ivy understood. If you weren't near a major library or a government office with mainframe access, you were stuck. Just phone calls and legwork. And if Joe was in some rural town in northern Michigan, he probably didn't even have access to a decent library, let alone government databases.
"I'll see what I can find," Ivy said. "How do I reach you?"
Joe gave her a number—probably the hotel. She wrote it down beneath the name, then read it back to confirm.
"Thanks, Ivy," he said, and she could hear the genuine gratitude in his voice. "I owe you."
"I haven’t had a good steak in forever," she said. "You can take me to The Palm for a huge ribeye."
"Deal."
They hung up.
Ivy sat there for a moment, staring at the name on her notepad.
Volkov.
Somewhere in the building, a door closed with a distant thump.
She pulled the notepad closer and started making a list, writing quickly, her mind already organizing the work ahead.
Ivy knew she could use the Treasury mainframe to check customs records, import/export databases, any financial transactions tied to the name.
She also had a friend in the Directorate of Operations who owed her a favor from a case last year. Ivy would see if the name Volkov meant anything to him.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check gun dealer records, explosives permits, anything tied to weapons trafficking. If Volkov was a type of weapon, there might be a paper trail, ideally, a flagged transaction.
The long shot was Interpol, but it might be worth a call. If Volkov, whatever it might turn out to be, existed in Europe, it wouldn’t be a total waste of time.
She looked at the clock again. It was too late to call most people tonight, but she could start with the Treasury databases. The mainframe didn't sleep. It ran twenty-four hours a day, processing transactions, storing records, waiting for queries.
And she had access.
Ivy turned to her terminal and typed in her login credentials, her fingers moving quickly over the heavy keys.
The screen flickered, the amber text glowing against the black background, then displayed the main menu—a list of databases and systems she could access.
Customs. IRS. Financial Management Service.
Secret Service records. She'd been using these systems for three years now, and she knew them inside and out.
She selected the customs database and waited while the system processed her request. The cursor blinked. The hard drive in the terminal housing whirred softly. Then the search screen appeared.
She typed: VOLKOV.
The system churned for a moment, processing the query, searching through millions of records—every import, every export, every person who'd crossed a U.S. border with declared goods in the past decade.
Ivy leaned forward, reading carefully, her eyes scanning the amber text.
This was going to be a long night.