Reacher closed the door.
The house went quiet again.
Tactically the best move would have been to lock Janet Salter in the basement. But she refused to go. She just stood in the hallway with her hand on the butt of the gun in her pocket. She looked all around, one point of the compass, then the next, as if she suddenly understood that the four walls that were supposed to protect her were really just four different ways in. There were doors and windows all over the place. Any one of them could be forced or busted in an instant.
Second best would have been to stash her in her bedroom. Second-floor break-ins were much less common than first-floor. But she wouldn’t go upstairs, either. She said she would feel she had nowhere to run.
‘You won’t be running,’ Reacher said. ‘You’ll be shooting.’
‘Not while you’re here, surely.’
‘Twelve holes in the guy are better than six.’
She was quiet for a beat. She looked at him like he was an alien.
She asked, ‘Shouldn’t you be patrolling outside?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It would take me far too long to get from front to back, if I had to. And my finger wouldn’t fit in the trigger guard with gloves on. And it’s too cold to go out without gloves.’
‘So we just wait in here?’
Reacher nodded. ‘That’s right. We wait in here.’
They waited in the parlour. Reacher figured it was the best choice. It overlooked the front, and given the snow on the ground, frontal approach was the most likely. And even if an actual approach was not attempted, the parlour was still the best room. The way it looked out under the lip of the porch roof and across the whole of its depth meant that a potential sniper would have to line up front and centre to get a shot. He would be spotted twenty paces before he even raised the rifle to his eye.
There were many other possible dangers. Bombs or fire bombs were top of the list. But if that kind of thing was coming their way, it didn’t really matter which room they were in.
The clock ticked past nine and marked the end of their first hour alone. The street outside was deserted. Reacher made a careful sweep of the interior perimeter. The front door, locked. The first floor windows, all closed. The French doors in the library, locked. The back door, locked. Second storey windows, all good. Most of them were inaccessible without a ladder. The only viable possibility was a bedroom window at the front, which had the back edge of the porch roof directly under its sill. But there was a lot of snow out there. The porch roof itself would be slippery and treacherous. Safe enough.
The weather was changing. A light wind was getting up. The night sky was clearing. The moon was bright and stars were visible. The temperature felt like it was dropping. Every window Reacher checked had a layer of air in front of it that was pulsing with cold. The wind didn’t help. It found invisible cracks and made invisible draughts and sucked heat out of the whole structure.
The wind didn’t help safety, either. It made strange sounds. Rustling, cracking, crackling noises, the brittle chafing of frozen foliage, hollow clicks and clonks from frozen tree limbs, a faint keening from the weird shapes on the power lines. In absolute terms the sounds were quiet, but Reacher could have done without them. He was depending on hearing the soft crunch and slide of feet on snow, and the chances of doing that were diminishing. And Janet Salter was talking from time to time, which made things worse, but he didn’t want to shut her up. She was nervous, understandably, and talking seemed to help her. He got back from a circuit of the house and she asked him, ‘How many times have you done this kind of thing before?’
He kept his eyes on the window and said, ‘Once or twice.’
‘And clearly you survived.’
He nodded. ‘So far.’
‘What’s your secret of success?’
‘I don’t like getting beaten. Better for all concerned that it just doesn’t happen.’
‘That’s a heavy burden to carry, psychologically. That kind of burning need for dominance, I mean.’
‘Are there people who enjoy getting beaten?’
‘It’s not black and white. You wouldn’t have to enjoy it. But you could be at peace with whatever comes your way. You know, win some, lose some.’
‘Doesn’t work that way. Not in my line of work. You win some, and then you lose one. And then it’s game over.’
‘You’re still in the army, aren’t you?’
‘No, I’ve been out for years.’
‘In your head, I mean.’
‘Not really.’
‘Don’t you miss it?’
‘Not really.’
‘I heard you on the phone, with the woman in Virginia. You sounded alive.’
‘That was because of her. Not the army. She’s got a great voice.’
‘You’re lonely.’
‘Aren’t you?’
She didn’t answer. The clock ticked on. Nobody approached the house.
After an hour and a half Reacher had made four security sweeps and felt he knew the house pretty well. It had been built for an earlier generation, which had been in some ways tougher, and in some ways gentler. The windows had catches and the doors had locks, all solid well-machined pieces of brass, but nothing like the armour on sale at any modern hardware store. Which meant that there were forty-three possible ways in, of which fifteen were realistically practical, of which eight might be anticipated by a solo opponent of normal intelligence, of which six would be easy to defeat. The remaining two would be difficult to beat, but feasible, made harder by Janet Salter’s wandering presence. Lines of fire were always complicated. He thought again about insisting she lock herself downstairs, but she saw him thinking and started talking again, as if to head him off. He was at the parlour window, craning left, craning right, and she asked, ‘Was it your mother or your father who was a Marine?’
He said, ‘Excuse me?’
‘You told me you grew up on Marine Corps bases. I was wondering which of your parents made that necessary. Although I suppose it could have been both of them. Was that permitted? A husband and wife serving together?’
‘I don’t imagine so.’
‘So which one was it?’
‘It was my father.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘Not much to tell. Nice guy, but busy.’
‘Distant?’
‘He probably thought I was. There were a hundred kids on every base. We ran around all day. We were in a world of our own.’
‘Is he still alive?’
‘He died a long time ago. My mother, too.’
‘It was the same for me,’ Janet Salter said. ‘I made myself distant. I was always reading.’
He didn’t reply, and she went quiet again. He watched the street. Nothing happening. He moved to the library and checked the yard. Nothing happening. The last of the cloud was moving away and the moon was brightening. It was a blue, cold, empty world out there.
Except that it wasn’t empty.
But nobody came.
Hide and seek. Maybe the oldest game in the world. Because of ancient thrills and fears buried deep in the back of every human’s brain. Predator and prey. The irresistible shiver of delight, crouching in the dark, hearing the footsteps pass by. The rush of pleasure in doubling back and wrenching open the closet door and discovering the victim. The instant translation of primeval terrors into modern-day laughter.
This was different.
There would be no laughter. There would be short seconds of furious gunfire and the stink of smoke and blood and then sudden deafened silence and a world-stands-still pause to look down and check yourself for damage. Then another pause to check your people. Then the shakes and the gulps and the need to throw up.
No laughter.
And this wasn’t hide and seek. Nobody was really hiding, and nobody was really seeking. Whoever was out there knew full well where Janet Salter was. An exact address would have been provided. Maybe tu
rn-by-turn directions, maybe GPS coordinates. And she was just sitting right there, waiting for him. No art. Just brutality. Which disappointed Reacher a little. He was good at hide and seek. The real-world version, not the children’s game. Good at hiding, better at seeking. His former professional obligations had led him in that direction. He had been a good hunter of people. Fugitives, mainly. He had learned that empathy was the key. Understand their motives, their circumstances, their goals, their aims, their fears, their needs. Think like them. See what they see. Be them. He had gotten to the point where he could spend an hour with a case file, a second hour thinking, a third with maps and phone books, and then predict pretty much the exact building the guy would be found in.
He checked the view to the front.
No one there.
Just an empty white world that seemed to be frozen solid.
He glanced back at Janet Salter and said, ‘I need you to watch the front for me.’
‘OK.’
‘I’ll be in the hallway for a spell. Anyone comes in through the kitchen or the library, I can get them in the corridor.’
‘OK.’
‘Stay back in the shadows, but keep your eyes peeled.’
‘OK.’
‘You see anything at all, you call out to me, loud and clear, with concise information. Numbers, location, direction, and description.’
‘OK.’
‘And do it standing up.’
‘Why?’
‘So if you fall asleep on the job I’ll hear you fall down.’
She took up a good position, well back in the room, invisible from outside, but with a decent angle. Her hand was still on the gun in her pocket. He stepped out to the hallway and moved the chair to the other side of the telephone table, so he could sit facing the rear of the house. He put his gun in his lap. Picked up the phone. Dialled the number he remembered.
‘Yes?’
‘Amanda, please.’
A pause. A click. The voice. It said, ‘You have got to be kidding me. Two hours ago you gave me two weeks’ worth of work, and already you’re calling me for a result?’
‘No, I’m not, but I can’t give you two weeks anyway. I need something by tomorrow at the latest.’
‘What are you, nuts?’
‘You said you were better than me, and I could have done it in a day. So a night should be good enough for you.’
‘What is that, psychology? You took motivation classes up at West Point?’
Reacher kept his hand on his gun and his eyes on the kitchen door. He asked, ‘Did you catch your guy yet?’
‘No, can’t you tell?’
‘Where are you looking?’
‘All the airports, plus boats on the Gulf Coast between Corpus Christi and New Orleans.’
‘He’s in a motel a little ways north of Austin. Almost certainly Georgetown. Almost certainly the second motel north of the bus depot.’
‘What, he’s wearing a secret ankle bracelet I don’t know about?’
‘No, he’s scared and alone. He needs help. Can’t get it anyplace except the overseas folks he’s in bed with. But he’s waiting to call them. They’ll help him if he’s clean, they’ll ditch him if he’s compromised. Maybe they’ll even kill him. He knows that. A fugitive from the law, that’s OK with them. A political fugitive, not so much. They’d worry about us tracking him all the way home, wherever home is. So he needs to know the news. He needs a media market that covers Fort Hood’s business. If it stays a plain vanilla domestic homicide, he’ll make the call. If it doesn’t, he’ll end up putting his gun in his mouth.’
‘We haven’t released the background.’
‘Then he’ll take a day or two to be sure, and then he’ll call them.’
‘But he could have gone anywhere for that. Waco, Dallas, Abilene, even.’
‘No, he made a careful choice. Abilene is too far and too small. And Waco and Dallas are too patriotic. He thinks that TV and radio there might sit on the espionage angle. What is he, Fourth Infantry? Audiences in Waco and Dallas don’t want to hear about a Fourth Infantry captain going bad. He knows that. But Austin is much more liberal. And it’s the state capital, so the news stations are a little looser. He needs the real skinny, and he knows that Austin is where he’s going to get it.’
‘You said Georgetown.’
‘He’s afraid of the actual city. Too many cops, too much going on. He didn’t drive, did he? Too afraid of cops on the highway. His car is still on the post, right?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘So he took the bus from Hood and stopped short. Georgetown is right there, close to Austin, but not too close. He watched out the window, all the way in. One motel after another. He mapped them in his head. He got out at the depot and walked back the way he came. Didn’t want unfamiliar territory. Didn’t want to walk too far, either. Too exposed. Too vulnerable. But even so he didn’t like the place nearest the depot. It felt too obvious. So he picked the second place. He’s there right now, in his room with the chain on, watching all the local channels.’
The voice didn’t answer.
Reacher said, ‘Wait one.’ He laid the phone gently on the table and got up. Checked the kitchen, checked the library. Nothing doing. He checked the parlour. Janet Salter was still on her feet, rock solid, deep in the shadows.
Nothing to see on the street.
No one coming.
Reacher went back to the hallway and sat down again in the chair and picked up the phone. The voice asked, ‘Anything else?’
‘Not that it matters, but he sat in the front third of the bus.’
‘You’re full of shit.’
‘It was a kind of camouflage. He didn’t want to give himself away as a fugitive. He thinks bad boys sit in back. He’s a Fourth Infantry captain. Probably a strait-laced kind of a guy. He remembers his school bus. The greasers sat in back. He didn’t.’
No answer. ‘Georgetown,’ Reacher said. ‘Second motel north of the bus depot. Check it out.’
No answer.
Reacher asked, ‘Where are your nearest people?’
‘I have people at Hood.’
‘So send them down. It’s about fifty miles. What can it cost you?’
No answer.
Reacher said, ‘And don’t forget, I need my information by tomorrow.’
He hung up. He put the chair back where it was supposed to be and stepped across the hallway and into the parlour. He checked the window.
Nothing to see.
No one coming.
Five to ten in the evening.
Thirty hours to go.
TWENTY
THE CLOCK TICKED ON. REACHER TOOK EVERY COMPLETED MINUTE to be a small victory. A prison riot could not last for ever. Its initial phase would be relatively short. Hostages would be taken, territory would be seized, a standoff would ensue. Tactical adjustments would be made. The corrections officers would regroup. The cops would be released from duty. Reacher knew that.
Therefore the guy knew that, too.
Reacher didn’t understand why he didn’t come. His target was an old woman in a house. What was he waiting for?
At half past ten Janet Salter volunteered to make coffee. Reacher wouldn’t let her. Maybe that was what the guy was waiting for. The percolator needed water. Water came from the faucet. The faucet was over the sink. The sink was under the window. A preoccupied grey head two feet the other side of the glass might be a tempting target. So he made the coffee himself, after a duly cautious inspection of the vicinity. An unnecessary inspection, as it turned out. He stepped out the back door without coat, gloves, or hat. The cold hit him like a fist. It was raging. It was searching. It stunned him. Way below zero. Too far below to even guess at a number.
He stepped back in. Nobody was waiting out there for a target of opportunity. Impossible. After a minute you would be shaking too hard to see, let alone shoot. After an hour you would be in a coma. After two, you would be dead.
Which thoughts clarified thin
gs a little. There would be no long stealthy approach on foot through the snow. The danger would come from the front. The guy would have to drive up, jump out, and move fast. So after the percolator finished gulping and hissing Reacher poured two mugs and carried them back to the parlour, where he told Janet Salter they would alternate spells at the window, ten minutes on, ten minutes off, all through the next hour.
The next hour passed slowly. No one approached the house. The world outside was dead. Deep frozen. Nothing was moving, except the wind. It was blowing steadily out of the west. It was scouring powder into small stunted drifts and exposing ridges of ice that glittered blue in the moonlight. A spectral, elemental scene. Janet Salter did something with a dial on a wall and turned the heat up. Not good, in Reacher’s opinion. Warmth made people sleepy. But he didn’t want her to freeze. He had read about old folks, dead in their homes, overcome by hypothermia.
She asked, ‘Have you ever been here in winter before?’
He said, ‘I’ve never been here in any season.’
‘North Dakota, perhaps?’
‘I’ve been in the Dakota Building in New York City.’
‘Which was named for here,’ she said. ‘At the time it was built, the city didn’t extend much past 34th Street. It seemed lunatic to build fancy apartments all the way up on 72nd Street, and on the West Side, too. People said, you might as well put them in the Dakota Territory. The name stuck. The man who built it owned part of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, which brings us full circle, really, doesn’t it, back to that can of oil.’
She was talking for the sake of talking. Reacher let her. He kept his eye on the street and filtered most of it out. She got into a long disquisition on the state’s history. Explorers and traders, Lewis and Clark, the Sioux Nation, Fort Pierre, sodbusters and pioneers, the gold rush, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Custer, the Black Hills, Wounded Knee, the Dust Bowl, some guy called Brokaw she claimed had been on network TV.
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