by Lee Child
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t need more women in danger here.”
“So why did you let him do it?”
“Let him? He’s my boss. And this is law enforcement. Emphasis on the enforcement. But I need you to know it wouldn’t have been my way. Because we need to be able to work together.”
“Is this an apology?”
She said nothing.
“Is it? Finally?”
She made a face. “Close as you’ll get from me, I guess.”
Reacher shrugged. “OK, whatever.”
“Friends now?” she said.
“We’ll never be friends,” Reacher said. “You can forget about that.”
“You don’t like me,” she said.
“You want me to be honest with you?”
She shrugged. “Not really, I guess. I just want you to help me out.”
“I’ll be a go-between,” he said. “That’s what I agreed to. But you need to tell me what you want.”
She nodded. “Special Forces sound promising to me. First thing you’ll do is check them out.”
He looked away, and clenched his teeth to keep himself from smiling.
THEY SPENT A whole hour at the rest stop. Toward the end of it Lamarr started to relax. Then she seemed reluctant to get back on the road.
“You want me to drive?” Reacher asked.
“It’s a Bureau car,” she said. “You’re not permitted.”
But the question jogged her back on track. She gathered her purse and stood up from the table. Reacher took the trash to the receptacle and joined her at the door. They walked back to the Buick in silence. She fired it up and eased it out of the slot and merged onto the highway.
The hum of the motor came back, and the faint noise from the road and the muted rush of the air, and within a minute it was like they had never stopped at all. Lamarr was in the same position, upright and tense behind the wheel, and Reacher was sprawled on her right, watching the view flash by.
“Tell me about your sister,” he said.
“My stepsister.”
“Whatever, tell me about her.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “You want me to help, I need background. Like where did she serve, what happened to her, stuff like that.”
“She’s a rich girl who wanted adventure.”
“So she joined the Army?”
“She believed the advertisements. You seen those, in magazines? They make it look tough and glamorous. ”
“Is she tough?”
Lamarr nodded. “She’s very physical, you know? She loves all that stuff, rock climbing, biking, skiing, hiking, windsurfing. She thought the Army was going to be all rappelling down cliffs with a knife between your teeth.”
“And it wasn’t?”
“You know damn well it wasn’t. Not back then, not for a woman. They put her in a transport battalion, made her drive a truck.”
“Why didn’t she quit, if she’s rich?”
“Because she’s not a quitter. She did great in basic training. She was pushing for something better.”
“And?”
“She saw some jerk of a colonel five times, trying to make some progress. He suggested if she was naked throughout the sixth interview, that might help.”
“And?”
“She busted him. Whereupon they gave her the transfer she wanted. Infantry close-support unit, about as near the action as a woman was going to get.”
“But?”
“You know how it works, right? Rumors? No smoke without fire? The assumption was she had screwed the guy, you know, even though she had busted him and he was canned, which made it completely illogical. In the end, she couldn’t stand the whispers, and she did finally quit.”
“So what’s she doing now?”
“Nothing. She’s feeling a little sorry for herself.”
“You close to her?”
She paused.
“Not very, to be honest,” she said. “Not as close as I’d maybe want to be.”
“You like her?”
Lamarr made a face. “What’s not to like? She’s very likable. She’s a great person, actually. But I made mistakes, right from the start. Handled it all wrong. I was young, my dad was dead, we were real poor, this rich guy fell in love with my mother and finished up adopting me. I was full of resentment that I was being rescued , I guess. So I figured it didn’t mean I had to fall in love with her. She’s only my stepsister, I said to myself.”
“You never got past it?”
She shook her head. “Not totally. My fault, I admit it. My mother died early, which left me feeling a little isolated and awkward. I didn’t handle it well. So now my stepsister is basically just a nice woman I know. Like a close acquaintance. I guess we both feel that way. But we get along OK, what we see of each other.”
He nodded. “If they’re rich, are you rich too?”
She glanced sideways. Smiled. The crossed teeth flashed, briefly.
“Why?” she said. “You like rich women? Or maybe you think rich women shouldn’t hold down jobs? Or any women?”
“Just making conversation.”
She smiled again. “I’m richer than you’d think. My stepfather has lots of money. And he’s very fair with us, even though I’m not really his daughter and she is.”
“Lucky you.”
She paused.
“And we’re going to be a lot richer soon,” she said. “Unfortunately. He’s real sick. He’s been fighting cancer for two years. Tough old guy, but now he’s going to die. So there’s a big inheritance coming our way.”
“I’m sorry he’s sick,” Reacher said.
She nodded. “Yes, so am I. It’s sad.”
There was silence. Just the hum of the miles passing under the wheels.
“Did you warn your sister?” Reacher asked.
“My stepsister.”
He glanced at her. “Why do you always emphasize she’s your stepsister?”
She shrugged at the wheel. “Because Blake will pull me off if he thinks I’m too involved. And I don’t want that to happen.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course I don’t. Somebody close to you is in trouble, you want to take care of it yourself, right?”
Reacher looked away.
“You better believe it,” he said.
She was quiet for a beat.
“And the family thing is very awkward for me,” she said. “All those mistakes came home to haunt me. When my mother died, they could have cut me off, but they just didn’t. They still both treat me exactly right, all the way, very loving, very generous, very fair and equal, and the more they do, the more I feel really guilty for calling myself a Cinderella at the beginning.”
Reacher said nothing.
“You think I’m being irrational again,” she said.
He said nothing. She drove on, eyes fixed on the windshield.
“Cinderella,” she said. “Although you’d probably call me the ugly sister.”
He made no reply to that. Just watched the road.
“Whatever, did you warn her?” he asked again.
She glanced sideways at him and he saw her haul herself back to the present.
“Yes, of course I warned her,” she said. “Soon as Cooke made the pattern clear, I’ve called her over and over again. She should be safe enough. She spends a lot of time at the hospital with her father, and when she’s at home I’ve told her not to let anybody through the door. Nobody at all, not anybody, no matter who they are.”
“She pay attention?”
“I made sure she did.”
He nodded. “OK, she’s safe enough. Only eighty-seven others to worry about.”
AFTER NEW JERSEY came eighty miles of Maryland, which took an hour and twenty minutes to cover. It was raining again, prematurely dark. Then they skirted the District of Columbia and entered Virginia and settled in for the final forty miles of I-95, all the way down to Quantico. The buildings of the
city receded behind them and gentle forest built ahead. The rain stopped. The sky lightened. Lamarr cruised fast and then slowed suddenly and turned off the highway onto an unmarked road winding through the trees. The surface was good, but the curves were tight. After a half-mile, there was a neat clearing with parked military vehicles and huts painted dark green.
“Marines,” she said. “They gave us sixty acres of land for our place.”
He smiled. “That’s not how they see it. They figure you stole it.”
More curves, another half-mile, and there was another clearing. Same vehicles, same huts, same green paint.
“Camouflage basecoat,” Reacher said.
She nodded. “Creepy.”
More curves, two more clearings, altogether two miles deep into the woods. Reacher sat forward and paid attention. He had never been to Quantico before. He was curious. The car rounded a tight bend and came clear of the trees and stopped short at a checkpoint barrier. There was a red-and-white striped pole across the roadway and a sentry’s hutch made from bullet-proof glass. An armed guard stepped forward. Over his shoulder in the distance was a long, low huddle of honey stone buildings. A couple of squat high-rises standing among them. The buildings crouched alone on undulating lawns. The lawns were immaculate and the way the low buildings spread into them meant their architect hadn’t been worried about consuming space. The place looked very peaceful, like a minor college campus or a corporate headquarters, except for the razor-wire perimeter and the armed guard.
Lamarr had the window down and was rooting in her purse for ID. The guy clearly knew who she was, but rules are rules and he needed to see her plastic. He nodded as soon as her hand came clear of the bag. Then he switched his gaze across to Reacher.
“You should have paperwork on him,” Lamarr said.
The guy nodded again. “Yeah, Mr. Blake took care of it.”
He ducked back to his hutch and came out with a laminated plastic tag on a chain. He handed it through the window and Lamarr passed it on. It had Reacher’s name and his old service photograph on it. The whole thing was overprinted with a pale red V.
"V for visitor,” Lamarr said. “You wear it at all times.”
“Or?” Reacher asked.
“Or you get shot. And I’m not kidding.”
The guard was back in his hutch, raising the barrier. Lamarr buzzed her window up and accelerated through. The road climbed the undulations and revealed parking lots in the dips. Reacher could hear gunfire. The flat bark of heavy handguns, maybe two hundred yards away in the trees.
“Target practice,” Lamarr said. “Goes on all the time.”
She was bright and alert. Like proximity to the mother ship was reviving her. Reacher could see how that could happen. The whole place was impressive. It nestled in a natural bowl, deep in the forest, miles away from anywhere. It felt isolated and secret. Easy to see how it could breed a fierce, loyal spirit in the people fortunate enough to be admitted to it.
Lamarr drove slowly over speed bumps to a parking lot in front of the largest building. She eased nose-first into a slot and shut it down. Checked her watch.
“Six hours ten minutes,” she said. “That’s real slow. The weather, I guess, plus we stopped too long for lunch.”
Silence in the car.
“So now what?” Reacher asked.
“Now we go to work.”
The plate-glass doors at the front of the building opened up and Poulton walked out. The sandy-haired little guy with the mustache. He was wearing a fresh suit. Dark blue, with a white button-down and a gray tie. The new color made him less insignificant. More formal. He stood for a second and scanned the lot and then set his course for the car. Lamarr got out to meet him. Reacher sat still and waited. Poulton let Lamarr take her own bag from the trunk. It was a suit carrier in the same black imitation leather as her briefcase.
“Let’s go, Reacher,” she called.
He ducked his head and slipped the ID chain around his neck. Opened his door and slid out. It was cold and windy. The breeze was carrying the sound of dry leaves tossing, and gunfire.
“Bring your bag,” Poulton called.
“I don’t have a bag,” Reacher said.
Poulton glanced at Lamarr, and she gave him an I’ve had this all day look. Then they turned together and walked toward the building. Reacher glanced at the sky and followed them. The undulating ground gave him a new view with each new step. The land fell away to the left of the buildings, and he saw squads of trainees walking purposefully, or running in groups, or marching away into the woods with shotguns. Standard apparel seemed to be dark blue sweats with FBI embroidered in yellow on the front and back, like it was a fashion label or a major-league franchise. To his military eye, it all looked irredeemably civilian. Then he realized with a little chill of shame that that was partly because a healthy percentage of the people doing the walking and running and carrying were women.
Lamarr opened the plate-glass door and walked inside. Poulton waited for Reacher on the threshold.
“I’ll show you to your room,” he said. “You can stow your stuff.”
Up close in daylight, he looked older. There were faint lines in his face, barely visible, like a forty-year-old was wearing a twenty-year-old’s skin.
“I don’t have any stuff,” Reacher said to him. “I just told you that.”
Poulton hesitated. There was clearly an itinerary. A timetable to be followed.
“I’ll show you anyway,” he said.
Lamarr walked away with her bag and Poulton led Reacher to an elevator. They rode together to the third floor and came out on a quiet corridor with thin carpet on the floor and worn fabric on the walls. Poulton walked to a plain door and took a key from his pocket and opened it up. Inside was a standard-issue motel room. Narrow entryway, bathroom on the right, closet on the left, queen bed, table and two chairs, bland decor.
Poulton stayed out in the corridor. “Be ready in ten.”
The door sucked shut. There was no handle on the inside. Not quite a standard-issue motel room. There was a view of the woods from the window, but the window didn’t open. The frame was welded shut and the handle had been removed. There was a telephone on the nightstand. He picked it up and heard a dial tone. Hit 9 and heard more. He dialed Jodie’s private office line. Let it ring eighteen times before trying her apartment. Her machine cut in. He tried her mobile. It was switched off.
He put his coat in the closet and unclipped his toothbrush from his pocket and propped it in a glass on the bathroom vanity. Rinsed his face at the sink and pushed his hair into some kind of shape. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and waited.
9
EIGHT MINUTES LATER he heard a key in the lock and looked up and expected to see Poulton at the door. But it wasn’t Poulton. It was a woman. She looked about sixteen. She had long fair hair in a loose ponytail. White teeth in an open, tanned face. Bright blue eyes. She was wearing a man’s suit, extensively tailored to fit. A white shirt and a tie. Small black shoes with low heels. She was over six feet tall, long-limbed, and very slim. And completely spectacular. And she was smiling at him.
“Hi,” she said.
Reacher made no reply. Just stared at her. Her face clouded and her smile turned a little embarrassed.
"So you want to do the FAQs right away?”
“The what?” "The FAQs. Frequently asked questions.”
“I’m not sure I have any questions.”
“Oh, OK.”
She smiled again, relieved. It gave her a frank, guileless look.
“What are the frequently asked questions?” he asked.
“Oh, you know, the stuff most new guys around here ask me. It’s really, really tedious.”
She meant it. He could see that. But he asked anyway.
“What kind of stuff?” he said.
She made a face, resigned.
“I’m Lisa Harper,” she said. “I’m twenty-nine, yes really, I’m from Aspen, Colorado, I’m six fee
t one, yes really, I’ve been at Quantico two years, yes I date guys, no I dress like this just because I like it, no I’m not married, no I don’t currently have a boyfriend, and no I don’t want to have dinner with you tonight.”
She finished with another smile and he smiled back.
“Well, how about tomorrow night?” he said.
She shook her head. “All you need to know is I’m an FBI agent, on duty.”
“Doing what?”
“Watching you,” she said. “Where you go, I go. You’re classified SU, status unknown, maybe friendly, maybe hostile. Usually that means an organized-crime plea bargain, you know, some guy ratting out his bosses. Useful to us, but not reliable.”
“I’m not organized crime.”
“Our file says you might be.”
“Then the file is bullshit.”
She nodded, and smiled again. “I looked Petrosian up separately. He’s a Syrian. Therefore his rivals are Chinese. And they never employ anybody except other Chinese. Implausible they’d use an American WASP like you.”
“You point that out to anybody?”
“I’m sure they already know. They’re just trying to get you to take the threat seriously.”
“Should I take it seriously?”
She nodded. Stopped smiling.
“Yes, you should,” she said. “You should think very carefully about Jodie.”
“Jodie’s in the file?”
She nodded again. “Everything’s in the file.”
“So why don’t I have a handle on my door? My file shows I’m not the guy.”
“Because we’re very cautious and your profile is very bad. The guy will turn out to be very similar to you.”
“You a profiler too?”
She shook her head. The ponytail moved with it. “No, I’m operational. Assigned for the duration. But I listen carefully. Listen and learn, right? So let’s go.”
She held the door. It closed softly behind him as they walked to a different elevator. This one had buttons for five basement floors in a line beneath 3, 2, and 1. Lisa Harper pressed the bottom button. Reacher stood beside her and tried not to breathe in her scent. The elevator settled with a bump and the door slid back on a gray corridor bright with fluorescent light.