Pauling said, “I’ll drive you.”
“Where to?”
“Anywhere you want to go. Until we see what happens.”
“Is he really here already?”
Pauling nodded. “He left London at least an hour ago.”
“Does he know?”
“That it was all a sham? Not yet.”
“OK,” Kate said. “Take us somewhere. Anywhere. Now. Please.”
She stood up and grabbed Jade’s hand. No purse, no coat. She was ready to go, right there and then. No pause, no hesitation. Just panic. Reacher tossed Pauling the Mini’s keys and followed them all outside again. Jade climbed through to the tiny car’s rear bench and Kate got in next to Pauling. Pauling adjusted the seat and the mirror and clipped her belt and started the engine.
“Wait,” Reacher said.
On the road a mile to the west he could see a dark green shape moving fast behind a stand of trees. Green paint. Glinting in the watery sun. Clean and polished and shiny, not filthy like the farm truck.
A mile away. Ninety seconds. No time.
“Everybody back in the house,” he said. “Right now.”
CHAPTER 67
KATE AND JADE and Pauling ran straight upstairs and Reacher headed for the southeast corner of the house. Flattened himself against the wall and crept around to where he could get a look at the bridge over the ditch. He got there just in time to see a truck turn in. It was an old-style Land Rover Defender, bluff and square, an appliance more than a car, mud-and-snow tires, a brown canvas back. Two guys in it, rocking and bouncing behind the sparkling windshield. One of them was the vague shape Reacher had seen early that morning. Tony Jackson. The farmer. The other was Taylor. The truck was the Grange Farm Land Rover, newly cleaned and polished. Unrecognizable from the night before. Clearly the Norwich itinerary had included a stop at the car wash as well as the backhoe dealership.
Reacher ducked into the kitchen and shouted an all clear up the stairs. Then he went back outside to wait. The Land Rover pulled left and right through the driveway curves and paused a second as Jackson and Taylor took a long hard look at the Mini from fifty yards away. Then it sped up again and skidded to a halt in its parking spot between the back of the house and the barns. The doors opened and Jackson and Taylor climbed out. Reacher stayed where he was and Jackson walked right up to him and said, “You’re trespassing. Dave Kemp told me what you want. You talked to him this morning. In the shop? And the answer is no. I’m not selling.”
“I’m not buying,” Reacher said.
“So why are you here?”
Jackson was a lean and compact guy, not unlike Taylor himself. Same kind of height, same kind of weight. Same kind of generic English features. Similar accent. Better teeth, and lighter hair worn a little longer. But overall they could have been brothers, not just brothers-in-law.
Reacher said, “I’m here to see Taylor.”
Taylor stepped up and said, “What for?”
“To apologize to you,” Reacher said. “And to warn you.”
Taylor paused a beat. Blinked once. Then his eyes flicked left, flicked right, full of intelligence and calculation.
“Lane?” he asked.
“He’s less than an hour away.”
“OK,” Taylor said. He sounded calm. Composed. Not surprised. But Reacher didn’t expect him to be surprised. Surprise was for amateurs. And Taylor was a professional. A Special Forces veteran, and a smart and a capable one. Precious seconds spent being surprised were precious seconds wasted, and Taylor was spending the precious seconds exactly like he had been trained to: thinking, planning, revising tactics, reviewing options.
“My fault,” Reacher said. “I’m sorry.”
“I saw you on Sixth Avenue,” Taylor said. “When I was getting in the Jaguar. Didn’t think much of it, but I saw you again last night. In the pub. So then I knew. I thought you’d be heading up to your room to call Lane. But it looks like he mobilized himself faster than I thought he would.”
“He was already en route.”
“Good of you to stop by and let me know.”
“Least I could do. Under the circumstances.”
“Does he have this precise location?”
“More or less. I said Grange Farm. I stopped myself saying Bishops Pargeter. I said Fenchurch Saint Mary instead.”
“He’ll find us in the phone book. There’s no Grange Farm in Fenchurch. We’re the nearest.”
“I’m sorry,” Reacher said again.
“When did you figure it all out?”
“Just a little bit too late.”
“What tipped you off?”
“Toys. Jade packed her best toys.”
“Did you meet her yet?”
“Five minutes ago.”
Taylor smiled. Bad teeth, but a lot of warmth there. “She’s a great kid, isn’t she?”
“Seems to be.”
“What are you, a private cop?”
“I was a U.S. Army MP.”
“What’s your name?”
“Reacher.”
“How much did Lane pay you?”
“A million bucks.”
Taylor smiled again. “I’m flattered. And you’re good. But it was always only a matter of time. The longer nobody found my body, the more people would get to thinking. But this is a little quicker than I thought it would be. I thought I might have a couple of weeks.”
“You’ve got about sixty minutes.”
* * *
They gathered in the farmhouse kitchen for a council of war, all six of them, Taylor and Kate and Jade, and Jackson, and Pauling and Reacher. Jade was neither specifically included nor excluded. She just sat at the table and drew, crayons and butcher paper, the same bold colorful strokes Reacher had seen in her bedroom in the Dakota, and listened to the grown-ups talk. First thing Taylor said was, “Let’s light the fire again. It’s cold in here. And let’s have a cup of tea.”
Pauling asked, “Do we have time for that?”
“The British Army,” Reacher said. “They always have time for a cup of tea.”
There was a wicker basket of kindling sticks near the hearth. Taylor stacked a bunch of them over a pyramid of crumpled newspaper and struck a match. When the flame had taken he added bigger logs. Meanwhile Jackson was at the stove, heating a kettle of water and stuffing tea bags into a pot. He didn’t seem very worried, either. Just calm and competent and unhurried.
“What were you, back in the day?” Reacher asked him.
“First Para,” Jackson replied.
Reacher nodded. The 1st Parachute Regiment. The British equivalent of the U.S. Army Rangers, roughly. Air-mobile tough guys, not quite SAS, but close. Most SAS freshmen were 1st Para graduates.
“Lane’s got six guys with him,” Reacher said.
“The A-team?” Taylor asked. “Used to be seven guys. Before I resigned.”
“Used to be nine guys,” Reacher said.
“Hobart and Knight,” Taylor said. “Kate heard that story. From Hobart’s sister.”
“Was that the trigger?”
“Partly. And partly something else.”
“What else?”
“Hobart isn’t the only one. Not even close. He’s the worst, maybe, from what his sister said, but there are others. Lane got a lot of people killed and wounded over the years.”
“I saw his Rolodex,” Reacher said.
“He doesn’t do anything for them. Or their families.”
“Is that why you wanted the money?”
“The money is Kate’s alimony. She’s entitled to it. And how she spends it is up to her. But I’m sure she’ll do the right thing.”
Tony Jackson poured the tea from the pot, hot and sweet and strong, into five chipped and unmatched mugs. Jade was working on a glass of apple juice.
“Do we have time for this?” Pauling asked again.
“Reacher?” Taylor said. “Do we have time for this?”
“That depends,” Reacher said. “
On what exactly your aim is.”
“My aim is to live happily ever after.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “This is England. If it was Kansas, I’d be worried. If it was Kansas, Dave Kemp’s little store and a hundred others like it would be selling rifles and ammunition. But this isn’t Kansas. And no way did Lane bring anything in with him on the plane. So if he shows up now, he’s unarmed. He can’t do anything more than pick rocks off the driveway and throw them at us. Walls this thick and windows this small, that isn’t going to hurt us much.”
“He could burn us out,” Pauling said. “Bottles filled with gasoline, flaming rags in them, or whatever.”
Reacher said nothing. Just glanced at Taylor. Taylor said, “He wants to take me alive, Ms. Pauling. I’m sure of that. Fire might be in his plan for me eventually, but he’d want to do it slow and controlled. Something quick and easy just wouldn’t work for him.”
“So we’re just going to sit here?”
“Like Reacher said, if he shows up now he’s harmless.”
“This might be England, but there have to be weapons available somewhere.”
Taylor nodded. “All over the place, as a matter of fact. Private armorers for the British mercenary crews, bent army quartermasters, gangs of regular bad boys. But none of them are in the Yellow Pages. It takes time to find them.”
“How much time?”
“Twelve hours minimum, I would guess, depending on your connections. So like your man said, if Lane shows up now he’s harmless, and if he wants to lock and load first, he can’t show up until at least tomorrow. Plus, he likes dawn raids. He always has. Zero-dark-thirty, that’s what Delta taught him. Attack with the first rays of the sun.”
“Are you armed here?” Reacher asked.
“This is a farm,” Jackson answered. “Farmers are always prepared for vermin control.”
Something in his voice. Some kind of lethal determination. Reacher looked between him and Taylor. Same kind of height, same kind of weight, same kind of generic English features. Overall they could have been brothers. Sometimes a little resemblance is all you need. He got up out of his chair and walked over and took a look at the phone on the pine desk. It was an old-fashioned black instrument. It had a cord and a rotary dial. No memories. No speed dials.
He turned back to Taylor.
“You wanted this,” he said.
“Did I?”
“You used the name Leroy Clarkson. To point the way to your apartment.”
Taylor said nothing.
“You could have stopped Jade from bringing her toys. You could have told Kate to leave the photograph behind. Your sister Susan could have brought Tony’s passport over for you. She could have carried it in her purse. Then there would have been three Jacksons on the airplane manifest, not two Jacksons and a Taylor. Without your real name you couldn’t have been followed back to England.”
Taylor said nothing.
“The phone in your apartment was new,” Reacher said. “You didn’t have it before, did you? You bought it so that you could leave Susan’s number in it.”
“Why would I do that?” Taylor asked.
“Because you wanted Lane to find you here.”
Taylor said nothing.
“You talked to Dave Kemp in the village store,” Reacher said. “You gave him all kinds of unnecessary details. And he’s the biggest gossip in the county. Then you went and hung out in the pub with a bunch of nosy farmers. I’m sure you would have rather stayed home, under the circumstances. With your new family. But you couldn’t do that. Because you wanted to lay a clear trail. Because you knew Lane would hire someone like me. And you wanted to help someone like me find you. Because you wanted to bring Lane here for a showdown.”
Silence in the room.
Reacher said, “You wanted to be on your home turf. And you figured this is an easy place to defend.”
More silence. Reacher glanced at Kate.
“You were upset,” he said. “Not that Lane was coming, but that he was coming now. Already. Too soon.”
Kate said nothing. But Taylor nodded. “Like I said before, he was a little faster than we expected. But yes, we wanted him to come.”
“Why?”
“You just said it. We wanted a showdown. Closure. Finality.”
“Why now?”
“I told you.”
“Reparations for the wounded aren’t urgent. Not like this.”
Kate Lane looked up from her chair by the fire.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
CHAPTER 68
IN THE SOFT light of the flames from the hearth, Kate’s simple and vulnerable beauty was emphasized to the point of heartbreak. She said, “When Edward and I first started fighting he accused me of being unfaithful. Which wasn’t actually true back then. But he was in a rage. He said if he ever caught me sleeping around he would show me how much it hurt him by doing something to Jade that would hurt me even more. He went into the kind of detail I can’t repeat now. Not in front of her. But it was very frightening. It was so frightening that I persuaded myself not to take it seriously. But after hearing about Anne and Knight and Hobart I knew I had to take it seriously. By which time I really did have something to hide. So we ran. And here we are.”
“With Lane right behind you.”
“He deserves whatever he gets, Mr. Reacher. He’s truly a monster.”
Reacher turned to Jackson. “You’re not fixing the backhoe to dredge ditches, are you? It’s not raining and the ditches look fine anyway. And you wouldn’t take time out to do something like that. Not right now. Not under these circumstances. You’re fixing the backhoe to dig graves, aren’t you?”
“At least one grave,” Taylor said. “Maybe two or three, until the whole crew goes home and leaves us alone. You got a problem with that?”
We’ll find Taylor, Reacher had said, on the plane. Lane will take care of him, and then I’ll take care of Lane. Pauling had asked him, What about the others? Reacher had said: If I think the crew will fall apart with Lane gone, then I’ll leave the others alone and let it. But if one of them wants to step up and take over, I’ll do him, too. And so on and so forth, until the crew really does fall apart.
Pauling had said: Brutal.
Reacher had asked: Compared to what?
He looked straight at Taylor.
“No,” he answered. “I guess I don’t have a problem with that. Not really. No problem at all, in fact. I’m just not used to finding people on the same wavelength as me.”
“You keeping your million bucks?”
Reacher shook his head. “I was going to give it to Hobart.”
“That’s good,” Kate said. “That frees up some of our money for the others.”
Taylor said, “Ms. Pauling? What about you? Do you have a problem?”
Pauling said, “I ought to. I ought to have a huge problem. Once upon a time I swore an oath to uphold the law.”
“But?”
“I can’t get to Lane any other way. So no, I don’t have a problem.”
“So we’re in business,” Taylor said. “Welcome to the party.”
* * *
After they finished their tea Jackson took Reacher into a small mud room off the back of the kitchen and opened a double-door wall cupboard above a washing machine. In it were racked four Heckler & Koch G-36 automatic rifles. The G-36 was a very modern design that had showed up in service just before Reacher’s military career had ended. Therefore he wasn’t very familiar with it. It had a nineteen-inch barrel and an open folding stock and was basically fairly conventional apart from a huge superstructure that carried a bulky optical sight integrated into an oversized carrying handle. It was chambered for the standard 5.56mm NATO round and like most German weapons it looked very expensive and beautifully engineered.
Reacher asked, “Where did you get these from?”
“I bought them,” Jackson said. “From a bent quartermaster in Holland. Susan went over there and picked them up.”
“For this thing with Lane?”
Jackson nodded. “It’s been a heavy few weeks. Lots of planning.”
“Are they traceable?”
“The Dutch guy’s paperwork shows they were destroyed in a training accident.”
“Got ammunition?”
Jackson moved across the room and opened another cupboard, lower down. Behind a row of muddy Wellington boots Reacher could see the glint of black metal. A lot of it.
“Seventy magazines,” Jackson said. “Two thousand one hundred rounds.”
“That should do the trick.”
“We can’t use it. Not more than three or four rounds. Too noisy.”
“How close are the cops?”
“Not very. Norwich, I suppose, unless there happens to be a patrol car out. But people here have phones. Some of them even know how to use them.”
“You can turn the bird scarer off for a day.”
“Obviously. But I shouldn’t really be using that, either. An organic farm doesn’t need a bird scarer. No pesticides means plenty of insects for the birds to eat. They don’t go after the seed. Sooner or later people are going to realize that.”
“So the bird scarer is new, too?”
Jackson nodded. “Part of the planning. Set to start firing at dawn. That’s when we expect Lane to come.”
“If I had a sister and a brother-in-law I’d want them to be like you and Susan.”
“I go a long way back with Taylor. We were in Sierra Leone together. I’d do anything for him.”
“I never went to Africa.”
“Lucky you. We were fighting a bunch of rebels called the West Side Boys. I saw what they did to people. So I know what Hobart went through. Burkina Faso wasn’t far away.”
“You OK with all of this? You’ve got roots here, literally.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Take a vacation. All of you. I’ll stay.”
Jackson shook his head. “We’ll be OK. One round might do it. The G-36 is a pretty accurate piece.”
* * *
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