I nodded again.
"Right," I said. "So we've covered the press, the plates, and the inks. What about the paper?"
Kelstein brightened up and clasped his small hands like we'd reached the really interesting part.
"Paper is problem number four," he said. "Actually, we should really say it's problem number one. It's by far the biggest problem. It's the thing Joe and I couldn't understand about Kliner's operation."
"Why not?" I asked him.
"Because their paper is perfect," he said. "It's one hundred percent perfect. Their paper is better than their printing. And that is absolutely unheard of."
He started shaking his great white head in wonderment. Like he was lost in admiration for Kliner's achievement. We sat there, knee to knee in the old armchairs in silence.
"Perfect?" I prompted him.
He nodded and started up with the lecture again.
"It's unheard of," he said again. "The paper is the hardest part of the whole process. Don't forget, we're not talking about some amateur thing here. We're talking about an industrial-scale operation. In a year, they're printing four billion dollars' worth of hundreds."
"That many?" I said, surprised.
"Four billion," he said again. "About the same as the Lebanon operation. Those were Joe's figures. He was in a position to know. And that makes it inexplicable. Four billion in hundreds is forty million banknotes. That's a lot of paper. That's a completely inexplicable amount of paper, Mr. Reacher. And their paper is perfect."
"What sort of paper would they need?" I asked him.
He reached over and took the ten-dollar bill back from me. Crumpled it and pulled it and snapped it.
"It's a blend of fibers," he said. "Very clever and entirely unique. About eighty percent cotton, about twenty percent linen. No wood pulp in it at all. It's got more in common with the shirt on your back than with a newspaper, for instance. It's got a very clever chemical colorant in it, to give it a unique cream tint. And it's got random red and blue polymer threads pulped in, as fine as silk. Currency stock is wonderful paper. Durable, lasts for years, won't come apart in water, hot or cold. Absolutely precise absorbency, capable of accepting the finest engraving the platemakers can achieve."
"So the paper would be difficult to copy?" I said.
"Virtually impossible," he said. "In a way, it's so difficult to copy that even the official government supplier can't copy it. They have tremendous difficulty just keeping it consistent, batch to batch, and they're by far the most sophisticated papermaker in the entire world."
I ran it all through in my head. Press, plates, ink and paper.
"So the paper supply is really the key to all this?" I said.
Kelstein nodded ruefully.
"That was our conclusion," he said. "We agreed the paper supply was crucial, and we agreed we had no idea how they were managing it. That's why I can't really help you. I couldn't help Joe, and I can't help you. I'm terribly sorry."
I looked at him.
"They've got a warehouse full of something," I said. "Could that be paper?"
He snorted in derision. Snapped his great head around toward me.
"Don't you listen?" he said. "Currency stock is unobtainable. Completely unobtainable. You couldn't get forty sheets of currency stock, never mind forty million sheets. The whole thing is a total mystery. Joe and Walter and I racked our brains for a year and we came up with nothing."
"I think Bartholomew came up with something," I said.
Kelstein nodded sadly. He levered himself slowly out of his chair and stepped to his desk. Pressed the replay button on his telephone answering machine. The room was filled with an electronic beep, then with the sound of a dead man's voice.
"Kelstein?" the voice said. "Bartholomew here. It's Thursday night, late. I'm going to call you in the morning and I'm going to tell you the answer. I knew I'd beat you to it. Goodnight, old man."
The voice had excitement in it. Kelstein stood there and gazed into space as if Bartholomew's spirit was hanging there in the still air. He looked upset. I couldn't tell if that was because his old colleague was dead, or because his old colleague had beaten him to the answer.
"Poor Walter," he said. "I knew him fifty-six years."
I sat quietly for a spell. Then I stood up as well.
"I'll figure it out," I said.
Kelstein put his head on one side and looked at me sharply.
"Do you really think you will?" he said. "When Joe couldn't?"
I shrugged at the old guy.
"Maybe Joe did," I said. "We don't know what he'd figured out before they got him. Anyway, right now I'm going back to Georgia. Carry on the search."
Kelstein nodded and sighed. He looked stressed.
"Good luck, Mr. Reacher," he said. "I hope you finish your brother's business. Perhaps you will. He spoke of you often. He liked you, you know."
"He spoke of me?" I said.
"Often," the old guy said again. "He was very fond of you. He was sorry your job kept you so far away."
For a moment I couldn't speak. I felt unbearably guilty. Years would pass, I wouldn't think about him. But he was thinking about me?
"He was older, but you looked after him," he said. "That's what Joe told me. He said you were very fierce. Very tough. I guess if Joe wanted anybody to take care of the Kliners, he'd have nominated you."
I nodded.
"I'm out of here," I said.
I shook his frail hand and left him with the cops in the security office.