He stepped close to the window and glanced north. Traffic flowed away from him like a river. He glanced south. Watched the traffic coming toward him.
And saw a black Range Rover slowing and pulling in to the curb.
License plate: OSC 19.
Reacher spun around and was out of the bedroom in three long strides. Back in the living room after three more.
“They’re here,” he said. “Now.”
Silence for a split second.
Then Pauling said, “Shit.”
“What do we do?” Dee Marie said.
“Bathroom,” Reacher said. “All of you. Now.”
He stepped over to the sofa and grabbed the front of Hobart’s denim shirt and lifted him into the air. Carried him to the bathroom and laid him gently in the tub. Dee Marie and Pauling crowded in after him. Reacher pushed his way past them and back out to the hallway.
“You can’t be out there,” Pauling said.
“I have to be,” Reacher said. “Or they’ll search the whole place.”
“They shouldn’t find you here.”
“Lock the door,” Reacher said. “Sit tight and keep quiet.”
He stood in the hallway and heard a click from the bathroom door and a second later the intercom buzzed from the street. He waited a beat and hit the button and said, “Yes?” Heard amplified traffic noise and then a voice. Impossible to tell whose it was.
It said: “VA visiting nurse service.”
Reacher smiled. Nice, he thought.
He hit the button again and said, “Come on up.”
Then he walked back to the living room and sat down on the sofa to wait.
CHAPTER 46
REACHER HEARD LOUD creaking from the staircase. Three people, he guessed. He heard them make the turn and start up toward four. Heard them stop at the head of the stairs, surprised by the broken door. Then he heard the door open. There was a quiet metallic groan from a damaged hinge and after that there was nothing but the sound of footsteps in the foyer.
First into the living room was Perez, the tiny Spanish guy.
Then Addison, with the knife scar above his eye.
Then Edward Lane himself.
Perez stepped left and stopped dead and Addison stepped right and stopped dead and Lane moved into the center of the small static arc and stood still and stared.
“The hell are you doing here?” he asked.
“I beat you to it,” Reacher said.
“How?”
“Like I told you. I used to do this for a living. I could give you guys a mirror on a stick and I’d still be hours ahead of you.”
“So where is Hobart?”
“Not here.”
“It was you who broke down the door?”
“I didn’t have a key.”
“Where is he?”
“In the hospital.”
“Bullshit. We just checked.”
“Not here. In Birmingham, Alabama, or Nashville, Tennessee.”
“How do you figure that?”
“He needs specialized care. Saint Vincent’s recommended one of those big university hospitals down south. They gave him literature.” Reacher pointed at the small table and Edward Lane broke ranks with his men and stepped over to pick up the shiny brochures. He flipped through both of them and asked, “Which one?”
Reacher said, “It doesn’t matter which one.”
“The hell it doesn’t,” Lane said.
“Hobart didn’t kidnap Kate.”
“You think?”
“No, I know.”
“How?”
“You should have bought more information than just his address. You should have asked why he was at Saint Vincent’s in the first place.”
“We did. They said malaria. He was admitted for IV chloroquine.”
“And?”
“And nothing. A guy just home from Africa can expect to have malaria.”
“You should have gotten the whole story.”
“Which is?”
Reacher said, “First, he was strapped down to a bed getting that IV chloroquine at the exact time that Kate was taken. And second, he has a pre-existing condition.”
“What condition?”
Reacher shifted his gaze and looked straight at Perez and Addison.
“He’s a quadruple amputee,” he said. “No hands, no feet, can’t walk, can’t drive, can’t hold a gun or dial a telephone.”
Nobody spoke.
“It happened in prison,” Reacher said. “Back in Burkina Faso. The new regime had a little fun. Once a year. On his birthday. Left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand. With a machete. Chop, chop, chop, chop.”
Nobody spoke.
“After you all ran away and left him behind,” Reacher said.
No reaction. No guilt, no remorse.
No anger.
Just nothing.
“You weren’t there,” Lane said. “You don’t know how it was.”
“But I know how it is now,” Reacher said. “Hobart’s not the guy you’re looking for. He’s not physically capable.”
“You sure?”
“Beyond certain.”
“I still want to find him,” Lane said.
“Why?”
No answer. Checkmate. Lane couldn’t say why without going all the way back and admitting what he had asked Knight to do for him five years previously, and he couldn’t do that without blowing his cover in front of his men.
“So we’re back at square one,” he said. “You know who it wasn’t. Great job, Major. You’re making real progress here.”
“Not quite square one,” Reacher said.
“How?”
“I’m close,” Reacher said. “I’ll give you the guy.”
“When?”
“When you give me the money.”
“What money?”
“You offered me a million bucks.”
“To find my wife. It’s too late now.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “So I won’t give you the guy. I’ll give you a mirror on a stick instead.”
Lane said, “Give me the guy.”
“Then meet my price.”
“You’re that kind of a man?”
“Only a bullshitter doesn’t have a price.”
“High price.”
“I’m worth it.”
“I could have it beaten out of you.”
“You couldn’t,” Reacher said. He hadn’t moved at all. He was sitting back on the sofa, relaxed, sprawled, arms resting easy along the back cushions, legs spread, six-five, two-fifty, a picture of supreme physical self-confidence. “You try that shit and I’ll bend you over and I’ll use Addison’s head to hammer Perez up your ass like a nail.”
“I don’t like threats.”
“This from the guy who said he’d have me blinded?”
“I was upset.”
“I was broke. I still am.”
Silence in the room.
“OK,” Lane said.
“OK what?” Reacher said.
“OK, a million bucks. When do I get the name?”
“Tomorrow,” Reacher said.
Lane nodded. Turned away. Said to his men, “Let’s go.”
Addison said, “I need the bathroom.”
CHAPTER 47
THE AIR IN the room was hot and still. Addison asked, “Where’s the bathroom?”
Reacher stood up, slowly. Said, “What am I, the architect?” But he glanced over his left shoulder, at the kitchen door. Addison followed his gaze and moved a step in that direction and Reacher moved a step the other way. Just a subtle piece of psychological choreography, but due to the small size of the living room their relative positions were reversed. Now Reacher was nearer the bathroom.
Addison said, “I think that’s the kitchen.”
“Maybe,” Reacher said. “Check it out.”
He moved into position in the mouth of the hallway and watched Addison open the kitchen door. Addison glanced inside just long enough to
make sure what room it was and then he backed out. Then he stopped, in a slow-motion double-take. Checked again.
“When did Hobart go south?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” Reacher said. “Today, I guess.”
“He sure left in a hurry. There’s soup on the stove.”
“You think he should have washed the dishes?”
“Most people do.”
“Most people with no hands?”
“So how was he cooking soup at all?”
“With help,” Reacher said. “Don’t you think? Some welfare person, probably. The ambulance comes for Hobart, loads him up, you think some minimum-wage government housekeeper is going to stick around afterward and clean up? Because I don’t.”
Addison shrugged and closed the kitchen door.
“So where’s the bathroom?” he said.
Reacher said, “Go home and use yours.”
“What?”
“One day Hobart’s going to come back here with the kind of metal hands that can unzip his fly and he’s not going to want to think about you pissing in the same bowl as him.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not fit to piss in the same bowl as him. You left him behind.”
“You weren’t there.”
“For which you can thank your lucky stars. I’d have kicked your ass and dragged you up the line by your ears.”
Edward Lane took a step forward. “The sacrifice was necessary to save the unit.”
Reacher looked straight at him. “Sacrificing and saving are two different things.”
“Don’t question my orders.”
“Don’t question mine,” Reacher said. “Get these runts out of here. Let them piss in the gutter.”
Silence for a long moment. Nothing in Perez’s face, a scowl on Addison’s, shrewd judgment in Lane’s eyes.
“The name,” Lane said. “Tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there,” Reacher said.
Lane nodded to his men and they trooped out in the same order they had come in. First Perez, then Addison, with Lane bringing up the rear. Reacher listened to their feet on the stairs and waited for the street door to bang and then he stepped back to the bedroom. Watched them climb into the black Range Rover and take off north. He let a minute pass and when he judged they were through the light at Houston he walked back to the foyer and knocked on the bathroom door.
“They’re gone,” he said.
* * *
Reacher carried Hobart back to the sofa and sat him up like a rag doll. Dee Marie stepped into the kitchen and Pauling looked down at the floor and said, “We heard everything.”
Dee Marie said, “The soup is still warm. Lucky that guy didn’t get any closer.”
“Lucky for him,” Reacher said.
Hobart shifted his position on the sofa and said, “Don’t kid yourself. These are not pussycats. You were minutes away from getting hurt bad. Lane doesn’t hire nice people.”
“He hired you.”
“Yes, he did.”
“So?”
“I’m not a nice person,” Hobart said. “I fit right in.”
“You seem OK.”
“That’s just the sympathy vote.”
“So how bad are you?”
“I was dishonorably discharged. Kicked out of the Corps.”
“Why?”
“I refused an order. Then I beat the shit out of the guy who gave it to me.”
“What was the order?”
“To fire on a civilian vehicle. In Bosnia.”
“Sounds like an illegal order.”
Hobart shook his head. “No, my lieutenant was right. The car was full of bad guys. They wounded two of our own later that day. I screwed up.”
Reacher asked, “Suppose it had been Perez and Addison in those forward OPs in Africa? Would you have left them there?”
“A Marine’s job is to obey orders,” Hobart said. “And I had learned the hard way that sometimes officers know better.”
“Bottom line? No bullshit?”
Hobart stared into space. “I wouldn’t have left them there. No way on earth. I don’t see how anyone could. I sure as hell don’t see how they could have left me there. And I wish to God they hadn’t.”
“Soup,” Dee Marie said. “Time to stop talking and start eating.”
Pauling said, “We should move you first.”
“No need now,” Dee Marie said. “They won’t come back. Right now this is the safest place in the city.”
“It would be easier on you.”
“I’m not looking for easy. I’m looking for right.”
Then the buzzer from the street sounded and they heard a Russian accent on the intercom. The Soviet super from Sixth Avenue, come to fix the broken door. Reacher met him in the hallway. He was carrying a bag of tools and a length of spare lumber.
“Now we’re definitely OK,” Dee Marie said.
So Pauling just paid the Russian and she and Reacher walked down the stairs to the street.
* * *
Pauling was quiet and faintly hostile as they walked. She kept her distance and looked straight ahead. Avoided looking even close to Reacher’s direction.
“What?” he asked.
“We heard everything from the bathroom,” she said.
“And?”
“You signed on with Lane. You sold out. You’re working for him now.”
“I’m working for Kate and Jade.”
“You could do that for free.”
“I wanted to test him,” Reacher said. “I still need proof it’s for real this time. If it wasn’t, he’d have backed off. He’d have said the money was off the table because I was too late. But he didn’t. He wants the guy. Therefore there is a guy.”
“I don’t believe you. It’s a meaningless test. Like Patti Joseph said, Lane’s gambling. He’s putting on a show for his men and gambling that he’s smarter than you are.”
“But he had just found out that he’s not smarter than I am. I found Hobart before he did.”
“Whatever, this is about the money, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Reacher said. “It is.”
“At least you might try to deny it.”
Reacher smiled and kept on walking.
“You ever seen a million dollars in cash?” he asked. “Ever held a million dollars in your hands? I did, today. It’s a hell of a feeling. The weight, the density. The power. It felt warm. Like a little atom bomb.”
“I’m sure it was very impressive.”
“I wanted it, Pauling. I really did. And I can get it. I’m going to find the guy anyway. For Kate and Jade. I might as well sell his name to Lane. Doesn’t change the basic proposition.”
“It does. It makes you a mercenary. Just like them.”
“Money is a great enabler.”
“What are you going to do with a million dollars anyway? Buy a house? A car? A new shirt? I just don’t see it.”
“I’m often misunderstood,” he said.
“The misunderstanding was all mine. I liked you. I thought you were better than this.”
“You work for money.”
“But I choose who I work for, very carefully.”
“It’s a lot of money.”
“It’s dirty money.”
“It’ll spend just the same.”
“Well, enjoy it.”
“I will.”
She said nothing.
He said, “Pauling, give me a break.”
“Why would I?”
“Because first I’m going to pay you for your time and your services and your expenses, and then I’m going to send Hobart down to Birmingham or Nashville and get him fixed up right. I’m going to buy him a lifetime’s supply of spare parts and I’m going to rent him a place to live and I’m going to give him some walking-around money because my guess is he’s not very employable right now. At least not in his old trade. And then if there’s anything left, then sure, I’ll buy myself a new shirt.”
�
�Seriously?”
“Of course. I need a new shirt.”
“No, about Hobart?”
“Dead serious. He needs it. He deserves it. That’s for damn sure. And it’s only right that Lane should pay for it.”
Pauling stopped walking. Grabbed Reacher’s arm and stopped him, too.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I apologize.”
“Then make it up to me.”
“How?”
“Work with me. We’ve got a lot to do.”
“You told Lane you’d give him a name tomorrow.”
“I had to say something. I had to get him out of there.”
“Can we do it by tomorrow?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Where are we going to start?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
CHAPTER 48
THEY STARTED IN Lauren Pauling’s apartment. She lived in a small co-op on Barrow Street, near West 4th. The building had once been a factory and had vaulted brick ceilings and walls two feet thick. Her apartment was painted mostly yellow and felt warm and friendly. There was an alcove bedroom with no window, and a bathroom, and a kitchen, and a room with a sofa and a chair and a television set and a lot of books. There were muted rugs and soft textures and dark woods. It was a single woman’s place. That was clear. One mind had conceived it and decorated it. There were small framed photographs of children, but Reacher knew without asking that they were nephews and nieces.
He sat on the sofa and rested his head back on the cushion and stared up at the vaulted brick above. He believed that anything could be reverse-engineered. If one human or group of humans put something together, then another human or group of humans could take it apart again. It was a basic principle. All that was required was empathy and thought and imagination. And he liked pressure. He liked deadlines. He liked a short and finite time to crack a problem. He liked a quiet space to work in. And he liked a similar mind to work with. He started out with no doubt at all that he and Pauling could get the whole thing figured before morning.
Lee Child - [Jack Reacher 01-16] Page 398