The Searcher Read Online Free PDF Page A

want.”
    Sander pressed her mouth into a line, the opposite of a smile. Better for you if we just start, it said.
    â€œOK, Inspector. This all looks fine. But I’d appreciate it if you could give me two minutes. I have a guest to take care of. He was just leaving.”
    Hammer turned to gesture toward Rapp, who had come through the glass door into the lobby and was frowning mildly at the crowd he found there. He looked at Hammer in search of an explanation.
    â€œNo one leaves,” said Sander.
    â€œAn hour ago I’d never seen him, nor him me. He has nothing to do with this.”
    Sander held his eye, establishing control. She was his height, more or less, and her stare was level. Her eyebrows had been plucked into thin arches that gave her a look of fixed surprise.
    â€œUntil the search is complete no one leaves.”
    â€œHe has a plane to catch.”
    â€œThere’ll be other planes.”
    â€œYou have discretion, no?”
    â€œI do. And I’m exercising it.” The eyebrows lifted a little further. “You know your rights, do you, Mr. Hammer?”
    â€œI’ve had clients in this situation.”
    â€œI bet you have. Then you’ll know you’re not in charge. Your guest stays.”
    Their audience seemed to sense that this was growing into a contest. Probably it wasn’t a fight worth winning; Sander was here to do a job and nothing Hammer might do could stop her. Nor was there any clear benefit in making her like him even less than she seemed to already. But her manner, and the prickling hostility he detected in it, were unnecessary. Raid my offices, by all means, but don’t try to humiliate me.
    Rapp was watching the business calmly, confident that he occupied a different universe.
    â€œCan we talk for a moment, Inspector? Privately.”
    Sander shook her head.
    â€œMr. Hammer, this is a simple process. I ask you for things, you give them to me. There’s no negotiation.”
    If it had been wise, Hammer would have sighed. In his experience, the people who found it so difficult to behave appropriately had some lack in them, a need to inconvenience others to feel good about themselves. He had respect for the police but expected some in return. So be it.
    â€œInspector, I wasn’t going to make a deal. I was going to make a plan, see this all goes smoothly. Get the material ready, go over the computers and the servers and everything, because this can be a complicated process and if I can help make it easy for both of us then I will. We can do it like that. Or we can all just sit here and wait for my lawyer, which may take a while because he’ll need to get a big team together to keep an eye on your hundreds of people, and when we get started I can drag the whole thing out with ten questions to your every one. I’m happy either way. No doubt you have all the time in the world. But my friend here, he has a plane to catch, and until just now no connection with this company, and I’d appreciate it greatly if you let him leave. OK? I shouldn’t think he’d mind if you checked him for pieces of evidence.”
    Throughout his speech Hammer kept his eyes on Sander and smiled a cool, hard smile that he didn’t mean. Anger tended to show itself as frost in him. But given the chance he’d have marched her out of the building.
    Sander looked from Hammer to Rapp and then back to Hammer, calculating, he imagined, the price and value of a compromise.
    â€œWhat have you been discussing?”
    â€œAn e-mail breach in Poland. Nothing that concerns you.”
    â€œWho is he?”
    Hammer fished inside the top pocket of his jacket, pulled out a card, and passed it to her.
    â€œHe’s a Polish businessman. He owns a television company.” He didn’t think it necessary to mention all the others.
    â€œParker,” Sander said, with a nod, and one of the plainclothes officers walked over to Rapp, who held out his