by Child, Lee
IT WAS THREE hours, in the end. And it wasn’t daydreaming. He sat and stared into space and thought hard. Harper watched him, anxious. He took the file folders and arranged them on the table, Callan’s at the bottom right, Stanley’s at the bottom left, Cooke’s at the top right, and stared at them, musing about the geography again. He leaned back and closed his eyes.
“Making any progress?” Harper asked.
“I need a list of the ninety-one women,” he said.
“OK,” she said.
He waited with his eyes closed and heard her leave the room. Enjoyed the warmth and the silence for a long moment, and then she was back. He opened his eyes and saw her leaning over near him and handing him another thick blue file.
“Pencil,” he said.
She backed away to a drawer and found a pencil. Rolled it across the table to him. He opened the new file and started reading. First item was a Defense Department printout, four pages stapled together, ninety-one names in alphabetical order. He recognized some of them. Rita Scimeca was there, the woman he’d mentioned to Blake. She was next to Lorraine Stanley. Then there was a matching list with addresses, most of them obtained through the VA’s medical insurance operation or mail-forwarding instructions. Scimeca lived in Oregon. Then there was a thick sheaf of background information, Army postdischarge intelligence reports, extensive for some of the women, sketchy for others, but altogether enough for a basic conclusion. Reacher flipped back and forth between pages and went to work with the pencil and twenty minutes later counted up the marks he’d made.
“It was eleven women,” he said. “Not ninety-one.”
“It was?” Harper said.
He nodded.
“Eleven,” he said again. “Eight left, not eighty-eight. ”
“Why?”
“Lots of reasons. Ninety-one was always absurd. Who would seriously target ninety-one women? Five and a quarter years? It’s not credible. A guy this smart would break it down into something manageable, like eleven.”
“But how?”
“By limiting himself to what’s feasible. A subcategory. What else did Callan and Cooke and Stanley have in common?”
“What?”
“They were alone. Positively and unequivocally alone. Unmarried or separated, single-family houses in the suburbs or the countryside.”
“And that’s crucial?”
“Of course it is. Think about the MO. He needs somewhere quiet and lonely and isolated. No interruptions. And no witnesses nearby. He has to get all that paint into the house. So look at this list. There are married women, women with new babies, women living with family, parents, women in apartment houses and condos, farms, communes even, women gone back to college. But he wants women who live alone, in houses.”
Harper shook her head. “There are more than eleven of those. We did the research. I think it’s more than thirty. About a third.”
“But you had to check. I’m talking about women who are obviously living alone and isolated. At first glance. Because we have to assume the guy hasn’t got anybody doing research for him. He’s working alone, in secret. All he’s got is this list to study.”
“But that’s our list.”
“Not exclusively. It’s his, too. All this information came straight from the military, right? He had this list before you did.”
FORTY-THREE MILES AWAY, slightly east of north, the exact same list was lying open on a polished desk in a small windowless office in the darkness of the Pentagon’s interior. It was two Xerox generations newer than Reacher’s version, but it was otherwise identical. All the same pages were there. And they had eleven marks on them, against eleven names. Not hasty check marks in pencil, like Reacher had scrawled, but neat under-linings done with a fountain pen and a beveled ruler held away from the paper so the ink wouldn’t smudge.
Three of the eleven names had second lines struck through them.
The list was framed on the desk by the uniformed forearms of the office’s occupant. They were flat on the wood, and the wrists were cocked upward to keep the hands clear of the surface. The left hand held a ruler. The right hand held a pen. The left hand moved and placed the ruler exactly horizontal along the inked line under a fourth name. Then it slid upward a fraction and rested across the name itself. The right hand moved and the pen scored a thick line straight through it. Then the pen lifted off the page.
"SO WHAT DO we do about it?” Harper asked.
Reacher leaned back and closed his eyes again.
“I think you should gamble,” he said. “I think you should stake out the surviving eight around the clock and I think the guy will walk into your arms within sixteen days.”
She sounded uncertain.
“Hell of a gamble,” she said. “It’s very tenuous. You’re guessing about what he’s guessing about when he looks at the list.”
“I’m supposed to be representative of the guy. So what I guess should be what he guesses, right?”
“Suppose you’re wrong?”
“As opposed to what? The progress you’re making?”
She still sounded uncertain. “OK. I guess it’s a valid theory. Worth pursuing. But maybe they thought of it already.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”
She was quiet for a second. “OK, talk to Lamarr, first thing tomorrow.”
He opened his eyes. “You think she’ll be here?”
Harper nodded. “She’ll be here.”
“Won’t there be a funeral for her father?”
Harper nodded again. “There’ll have to be a funeral, obviously. But she won’t go. She’d miss her own funeral, a case like this.”
“OK, but you do the talking, and talk to Blake instead. Keep it away from Lamarr.”
“Why?”
“Because her sister clearly lives alone, remember? So her odds just went all the way down to eight to one. Blake will have to pull her off now.”
“If he agrees with you.”
“He should.”
“Maybe he will. But he won’t pull her off.”
“He should.”
“Maybe, but he won’t.”
Reacher shrugged. “Then don’t bother telling him anything. I’m just wasting my time here. The guy’s an idiot.”
“Don’t say that. You need to cooperate. Think about Jodie.”
He closed his eyes again and thought about Jodie. She seemed a long way away. He thought about her for a long time.
“Let’s go eat,” Harper said. “Then I’ll go talk to Blake.”
FORTY-THREE MILES AWAY, slightly east of north, the uniformed man stared at the paper, motionless. There was a look on his face appropriate to a man making slow progress through a complicated undertaking. Then there was a knock at his door.
“Wait,” he called.
He clicked the ruler down onto the wood and capped his pen and clipped it into his pocket. Folded the list and opened a drawer in his desk and slipped the list inside and weighted it down with a book. The book was a Bible, King James Version, black calfskin binding. He placed the ruler flat on top of the Bible and slid the drawer closed. Took keys from his pocket and locked the drawer. Put the keys back in his pocket and moved in his chair and straightened his jacket.
“Come,” he called.
The door opened and a corporal stepped inside and saluted.
“Your car is here, Colonel,” he said.
“OK, Corporal,” the colonel said.
THE SKIES ABOVE Quantico were still clear, but the crispness in the air was plummeting toward a real night chill. Darkness was creeping in from the east, behind the buildings. Reacher and Harper walked quickly and the lights along the path came on in sequence, following their pace, as if their passing was switching the power. They ate alone, at a table for two in a different part of the cafeteria. They walked back to the main building through full darkness. They rode the elevator and she unlocked his door with her key.
“Thanks for your input,” she said.
<
br /> He said nothing.
“And thanks for the handgun tutorial,” she said.
He nodded. “My pleasure.”
“It’s a good technique.”
“An old master sergeant taught it to me.”
She smiled. “No, not the shooting technique. The tutorial technique.”
He nodded again, remembering her back pressed close against his chest, her hips jammed against his, her hair in his face, her feel, her smell.
“Showing is always better than telling. I guess,” he said.
“Can’t beat it,” she replied.
She closed the door on him and he heard her walk away.
14
HE WOKE EARLY, before daybreak. Stood at the window for a spell, wrapped in a towel, staring out into the darkness. It was cold again. He shaved and showered. He was halfway through the Bureau’s bottle of shampoo. He dressed standing next to the bed. Took his coat from the closet and put it on. Ducked back into the bathroom and clipped his toothbrush into the inside pocket. Just in case today was the day.
He sat on the bed with the coat wrapped around him against the cold and waited for Harper. But when the key went into the lock and the door opened, it wasn’t Harper standing there. It was Poulton. He was keeping his face deliberately blank, and Reacher felt the first stirrings of triumph.
“Where’s Harper?” he asked.
“Off the case,” Poulton said.
“Did she talk to Blake?”
“Last night.”
“And?”
Poulton shrugged. “And nothing.”
“You’re ignoring my input?”
“You’re not here for input.”
Reacher nodded. “OK. Ready for breakfast?”
Poulton nodded back. “Sure.”
The sun was coming up in the east and sending color into the sky. There was no cloud. No damp. No wind. It was a pleasant walk through the early gloom. The place felt busy again. Monday morning, the start of a new week. Blake was at the usual table in the cafeteria, over by the window. Lamarr was sitting with him. She was wearing a black blouse in place of her customary cream. It was slightly faded, like it had been washed many times. There was coffee on the table, and mugs, and milk and sugar, and doughnuts. But no newspapers.
“I was sorry to hear the news from Spokane,” Reacher said.
Lamarr nodded, silently.
“I offered her time off,” Blake said. “She’s entitled to compassionate leave.”
Reacher looked at him. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”
“In the midst of life is death,” Lamarr said. “That’s something you learn pretty quickly around here.”
“You’re not going to the funeral?”
Lamarr took a teaspoon and balanced it across her forefinger. Stared down at it.
“Alison hasn’t called me,” she said. “I don’t know what the arrangements are going to be.”
“You didn’t call her?”
She shrugged. “I’d feel like I was intruding.”
“I don’t think Alison would agree with that.”
She looked straight at him. “But I just don’t know.”
There was silence. Reacher turned a mug over and poured coffee.
“We need to get to work,” Blake said.
“You didn’t like my theory?” Reacher said.
“It’s a guess, not a theory,” Blake said back. “We can all guess, as much as we want to. But we can’t turn our backs on eighty women just because we enjoy guessing.”
“Would they notice the difference?” Reacher asked.
He took a long sip of coffee and looked at the doughnuts. They were wrinkled and hard. Probably Saturday’s.
“So you’re not going to pay attention?” he asked.
Blake shrugged. “I gave it some consideration.”
“Well, give it some more. Because the next woman to die will be one of the eleven I marked, and it’ll be on your head.”
Blake said nothing and Reacher pushed his chair back.
“I want pancakes,” he said. “I don’t like the look of those doughnuts.”
He stood up before they could object and stepped away toward the center of the room. Stopped at the first table with a New York Times on it. It belonged to a guy on his own. He was reading the sports. The front section was discarded to his left. Reacher picked it up. The story he was waiting for was right there, front page, below the fold.
“Can I borrow this?” he asked.
The guy with the interest in sports nodded without looking. Reacher tucked the paper under his arm and walked to the serving counter. Breakfast was set out like a buffet. He helped himself to a stack of pancakes and eight rashers of bacon. Added syrup until the plate was swimming. He was going to need the nutrition. He had a long journey ahead, and he was probably going to be walking the first part of it.
He came back to the table and squatted awkwardly to get the plate down without spilling the syrup or dropping the newspaper. He propped the paper in front of his plate and started to eat. Then he pretended to notice the headline.
“Well, look at that,” he said, with his mouth full.
The headline read Gang Warfare Explodes in Lower Manhattan, Leaves Six Dead. The story recounted a brief and deadly turf war between two rival protection rackets, one of them allegedly Chinese, the other allegedly Syrian. Automatic firearms and machetes had been used. The body count ran four to two in favor of the Chinese. Among the four dead on the Syrian side was the alleged gang leader, a suspected felon named Almar Petrosian. There were quotes from the NYPD and the FBI, and background reporting about the hundred-year history of protection rackets in New York City, the Chinese tongs, the jockeying between different ethnic groups for their business, which reputedly ran to billions of dollars nationwide.
“Well, look at that,” Reacher said again.
They had already looked at it. That was clear. They were all turned away from him. Blake was staring through the window at the streaks of dawn in the sky. Poulton had his eyes fixed on the back wall. Lamarr was still studying her teaspoon.
“Cozo call you to confirm it?” Reacher asked.
Nobody said a thing, which was the same as a yes. Reacher smiled.
“Life’s a bitch, right?” he said. “You get a hook into me, and suddenly the hook isn’t there anymore. Fate’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”
“Fate,” Blake repeated.
“So let me get this straight,” Reacher said. “Harper wouldn’t play ball with the femme fatale thing, and now old Petrosian is dead, so you got no more cards to play. And you’re not listening to a word I say anyway, so is there a reason why I shouldn’t walk right out of here?”
“Lots of reasons,” Blake said.
There was silence.
“None of them good enough,” Reacher said.
He stood up and stepped away from the table again. Nobody tried to stop him. He walked out of the cafeteria and out through the glass doors into the chill of dawn. Started walking.
HE WALKED ALL the way out to the guardhouse on the perimeter. Ducked under the barrier and dropped his visitor’s pass on the road. Walked on and turned the corner and entered Marine territory. He kept to the middle of the pavement and reached the first clearing after a half-mile. There was a cluster of vehicles and a number of quiet, watchful men. They let him go on. Walking was unusual, but not illegal. He reached the second clearing thirty minutes after leaving the cafeteria. He walked through it and kept on going.
He heard the car behind him five minutes later. He stopped and turned and waited for it. It came near enough for him to see past the dazzle of its running lights. It was Harper, which is what he had expected. She was alone. She drew level with him and buzzed her window down.
“Hello, Reacher,” she said.
He nodded. Said nothing.
“Want a ride?” she asked.
“Out or back?”
“Wherever you decide.”
“I-95 on-ramp
will do it. Going north.”
“Hitchhiking?”
He nodded. “I’ve got no money for a plane.”
He slid in next to her and she accelerated gently away, heading out. She was in her second suit and her hair was loose. It spilled all over her shoulders.
“They tell you to bring me back?” he asked.
She shook her head. “They decided you’re useless. Nothing to contribute, is what they said.”
He smiled. “So now I’m supposed to get all boiled up with indignation and storm back in there and prove them wrong?”
She smiled back. “Something like that. They spent ten minutes discussing the best approach. Lamarr decided they should appeal to your ego.”
“That’s what happens when you’re a psychologist who studied landscape gardening in school.”
“I guess so.”
They drove on, through the wooded curves, past the last Marine clearing.
“But she’s right,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to contribute. Nobody’s going to catch this guy. He’s too smart. Too smart for me, that’s for damn sure.”
She smiled again. “A little psychology of your own? Trying to leave with a clear conscience?”
He shook his head. “My conscience is always clear.”
“Is it clear about Petrosian?”
“Why shouldn’t it be?”
“Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think? They threaten you with Petrosian, and he’s dead within three days.”
“Just dumb luck.”
“Yeah, luck. You know I didn’t tell them I was outside Trent’s office all day?”
“Why not?”
“I was covering my ass.”
He looked at her. "And what’s Trent’s office got to do with anything?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I don’t like coincidences. ”
“They happen, time to time. Obviously.”
“Nobody in the Bureau likes coincidences.”
“So?”
She shrugged again. “So they could, you know, dig around. Might make it hard for you, later.”
He smiled again. “This is phase two of the approach, right?”
She smiled back, and then the smile exploded into a laugh. “Yeah, phase two. There are about a dozen still to go. Some of them are real good. You want to hear them all?”