The Essential Jack Reacher 10-Book Bundle

by Lee Child

  Reacher let himself out of Hutton’s suite and used the stairs instead of the elevator. On the ground floor he turned away from the lobby and found a back corridor with a fire door at the end of it. He pushed the fire door open and held it ajar with his foot. Took Emerson’s card out of his pocket and tore it in half lengthwise and folded the half with the name on it four times. He pressed the tongue into the fire door’s lock with the ball of his thumb and wedged it there with the folded cardboard. He closed the door gently and pushed it flush with the frame with the flat of his hand. Then he walked away, past a Dumpster, through the staff lot, out to the street, heading north. The sidewalks were busy and the traffic lanes were starting to clog. He walked at a normal pace and used his height to scan the middle distance for patrol cars or cops on corners. The day was still warm. There was a weather system somewhere out there. Somewhere near. There was high pressure in the sky, clamping down, trapping the smell of damp earth and nitrogen fertilizer in the air.

  He reached the raised highway and turned west in its shadow. The roadbed strode along on pillars forty feet high. Underneath it were untidy lots, some vacant and full of trash, some with old brick buildings with dark skylights in their roofs, some with new metal sheds housing body shops and spray paint operations. He passed the back of the black glass tower and stayed in the highway’s shadow and turned south, ready to pass behind the library. He stopped suddenly and crouched and fiddled with his shoe. Like he had a stone. Glanced back under his arm and saw nobody behind him. No tail.

  He moved on. After the library he was exposed for forty yards. The plaza was east of him. He stopped momentarily on a spot he judged was directly below where Helen Rodin had parked the day before and where James Barr should have parked on Friday. Forty feet lower down the view was different but the geometry was the same. He could see the wilted tributes propped against the pool’s southern wall. They were small splashes of faded color in the distance. Beyond them was the DMV’s door. People were coming out in ones and twos. He checked his watch. Ten to five.

  He moved on, in the open, and made it across to First Street’s northernmost block. He looped one block south and three blocks east and came up on the parking garage’s entrance from the west. He walked up the ramp and found the security camera’s lens. It was a small circle of dirty glass mounted on a plain black box that was bolted high up in the angle of two concrete beams. He waved at it. It was too high, ideally. It should have been lower, at license plate level. But all the pillars below waist height were scuffed and scraped. A rainbow of different colors. Drivers were careless. Mounted lower, the camera would have lasted a day and a half. Maybe less.

  He walked up the ramps to the second level. Headed north and east, to the far back corner. The garage was still and quiet, but full. The space that James Barr had used was occupied. No room for sentiment in the scramble for downtown parking. No room for reverence.

  The border between the old garage and the new construction was marked by a triple barrier of tape strung between pillars. There was standard yellow-and-black contractor’s Caution Do Not Enter tape and above it and below it were new lengths of blue-and-white Police Line Do Not Cross tape. He used his forearm and stretched all three lines higher and just ducked underneath. No need to drop to one knee. No need to scuff a pair of jeans. No need to leave a mess of fibers. Not even for a guy six inches taller than Barr, and not even with a new line of tape six inches lower than the one Barr had encountered. He was literally going out of his way to leave every last piece of evidence he could.

  Reacher walked on into the gloom. The new construction was rectangular in shape. Maybe forty yards south to north, maybe two hundred east to west. Which meant Reacher arrived at the new northeast corner after thirty-five paces. He stood six feet back from the perimeter wall and looked down and right. He had a perfectly good view. No need to press up against a pillar. No need to squirm around like a horse on its back in a summer meadow.

  He stood there and watched. People were coming out of the government office in increasing numbers. There was quite a flow. Some paused and lit cigarettes as soon as they were out in the air. Others moved on directly west, some fast, some slow. All of them turned and tracked around the north end of the pool. None of them walked where Barr’s victims had walked. The funeral tributes were a disincentive. A reminder. Therefore it was hard to judge what Friday’s scene had looked like. Hard, but not impossible. Reacher watched the walking people and in his mind made them forgo their respectful right turns. He made them continue straight on. They would be slow entering the bottleneck. But not too slow. And they would be close. The combination of moderate speed and proximity would exaggerate the deflection angles. It would make the job harder. It was a basic principle of long-gun use. A bird traversing the sky a hundred yards away was an easy target. The same bird at the same speed flying six feet in front of your face was an impossible target.

  He pictured the people streaming right-to-left. He closed one eye and extended his arm and pointed his finger. Click, click-click, click-click-click. Six aimed shots. Four seconds. Fast. Tough geometry. Tension, exposure, vulnerability.

  Six hits, including the deliberate miss.

  Exceptional shooting.

  They don’t forget.

  He dropped his arm to his side. It was cold in the gloom. He shivered. The air was clammy and damp and full of the smell of lime. It had been hot in Kuwait City. The air had been shimmering and full of the smell of baked dust and desert sand. Reacher had stood in the parking garage and sweated. The street below him had been blinding. Murderous. Like a blast furnace.

  Hot in Kuwait City.

  Four shots there.

  Six shots here.

  He stood and watched the people coming out the DMV door. There were plenty of them. Ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty. They turned and looped north and then turned again and walked west between the pool and the NBC peacock. They gave each other space. But if they had been in the bottleneck they would have bunched up tight.

  Plenty of them.

  Six shots, in four seconds.

  He looked for anyone not moving. Didn’t see anybody. No cops, no old men in boxy suits. He turned around and retraced his steps. Lifted the tape again and ducked under it and walked back down the ramps. Slipped out to the street and turned west, heading for the shadows under the highway. Heading for the library.

  He crossed the forty yards of open ground and hugged the library’s side wall and went in through a handicapped entrance. He had to walk close to the desk, but he wasn’t worried about that. If Emerson started circulating Wanted notices he would hit the post offices and bars and hotels first. It would be a long time before he started canvassing librarians.

  He made it to the lobby OK and stepped over to the pay phones. Took the cocktail napkin out of his pocket and dialed Helen Rodin’s cell. She picked up on the fifth ring. He pictured her rooting through her purse, squinting at the screen, fumbling with the buttons.

  “Are you alone?” he asked.

  “Reacher?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But you’re in trouble.”

  “Who called you?”

  “My father.”

  “You believe him?”

  “No.”

  “I’m coming to see you.”

  “There’s a cop in the lobby.”

  “I figured. I’ll come in through the garage.”

  He hung up and walked back past the desk and out the side entrance. Back under the highway. He stayed in its shelter until he was opposite the back of the black glass tower. Opposite the vehicle ramp. He checked left, checked right, and walked straight down. Past the NBC trucks, past the Mustang he figured for Ann Yanni’s, to the elevator. He pressed the call button and waited. Checked his watch. Five-thirty. Most people would be leaving the building. A down elevator was certain to stop at the lobby level. An up elevator, maybe not. He hoped.

  The elevator car arrived in the gar
age and let three people out. They walked away. Reacher stepped in. Pressed 4. Stood back. The car rose one floor and stopped. In the lobby. The doors slid back like a theater curtain. The cop was right there, four feet from the elevator, facing away. He had his feet apart and his hands on his hips. He was almost close enough to touch. A man stepped into the elevator. He didn’t speak. Just nodded a two-guys-in-an-elevator greeting. Reacher nodded back. The guy pressed 7. The doors stayed open. The cop watched the street. The new guy jiggled the button. The cop moved. He swiped his cap off his head and ran his fingers through his hair. The doors closed. The elevator moved up.

  Reacher got out on four and walked through a small knot of people on their way home. Helen Rodin had her door open and ready. He stepped inside her suite and she closed up after him. She was wearing a short black skirt and a white blouse. She looked young. Like a schoolgirl. And she looked worried. Like a conflicted person.

  “I should turn you in,” she said.

  “But you won’t,” Reacher said.

  “No,” she said. “I should, but I won’t.”

  “Truth is I liked that girl,” Reacher said. “She was a sweet kid.”

  “She set you up.”

  “I wasn’t offended.”

  “Someone didn’t like her.”

  “We can’t tell. Affection didn’t come into it. She was disposable, that’s all. A means to an end.”

  “The puppet master really doesn’t want you around.”

  Reacher nodded. “That’s for damn sure. But he’s shit out of luck there, because I’m not leaving now. He just guaranteed that for himself.”

  “Is it safe to stay?”

  “It’s safe enough. But this thing with the girl is going to slow me down. So you’re going to have to do most of the work.”

  She led him into the inner office. She sat down at her desk. He stayed well away from the window. He sat on the floor and propped his back against the wall.

  “I already started the work,” Helen said. “I spoke to Rosemary and talked to Barr’s neighbors. Then I went back to the hospital. I think we’re looking for a guy called Charlie. Small guy, bristly black hair. Interested in guns. I got the impression he’s kind of furtive. I think he’s going to be hard to find.”

  “How long has he been on the scene?”

  “Five or six years, apparently. He’s the only long-term friend anyone could name. And he’s the only one Barr owns up to.”

  Reacher nodded again. “That works for me.”

  “And Barr doesn’t know Jeb Oliver and doesn’t use drugs.”

  “You believe him?”

  “Yes, I do,” Helen said. “Really. Right now I believe everything he says. It’s like he spent fourteen years turning his life around and now he can’t believe he went back. I think he’s as upset about all this as anyone.”

  “Except the victims.”

  “Give him a break, Reacher. Something weird was going on.”

  “Does this guy Charlie know about Kuwait City?”

  “Barr wouldn’t say. But I think he does.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Barr doesn’t know.”

  “He doesn’t know?”

  “He just sees him around. He just shows up now and then. Like I said, I think he’s going to be hard to find.”

  Reacher said nothing.

  “Did you speak to Eileen Hutton?” Helen asked.

  “She’s no threat. The army is keeping the lid on.”

  “Did you find the guy that was following you?”

  “No,” Reacher said. “I didn’t see him again. They must have pulled him off.”

  “So we’re nowhere.”

  “We’re closer than we were. We can start to see a shape. We can see four guys, at least. One, the old guy in the suit. Two, this guy called Charlie. Three, someone big and very strong and left-handed.”

  “Why him?”

  “He killed the girl last night. The old guy is too old and it sounds like Charlie might be too small. And the physical evidence suggests a left-handed blow.”

  “And number four is the puppet master.”

  Reacher nodded again. “In the shadows somewhere, making plans, pulling strings. We can assume he doesn’t run around doing this kind of stuff himself.”

  “But how can we get to him? If he’s pulled the guy off your tail, we can assume he’s pulled Charlie back, too. They’re hunkering down.”

  “There’s another way. A big wide highway.”

  “Where?”

  “We missed something very obvious,” Reacher said. “We spent all this time looking down the wrong end of the gun. All we’ve done is look at who fired it.”

  “What should we have done?”

  “We should have thought harder.”

  “About what?”

  “James Barr fired four times in Kuwait City. And he fired six times here.”

  “OK,” Helen said. “He fired two more shots here. So?”

  “But he didn’t,” Reacher said. “Not really. Not if you think about it laterally. Truth is he fired four fewer shots here.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Six is two more than four. Not four fewer.”

  “Kuwait City was very hot. Unbearable in the middle of the day. You had to be nuts to be out and about. The streets were empty most of the time.”

  “So?”

  “So in Kuwait City James Barr killed every live human he saw. One, two, three, four, game over. The street was deserted apart from our four guys. They were the only people dumb enough to be out in the heat. And Barr took them all. He ran the table. At the time it seemed logical to me. He wanted to see the pink mist. It struck me that maybe he might have been satisfied with seeing it once, but apparently he wasn’t. So it made some kind of sense that if he didn’t stop at one, he would go all the way until he ran out of targets. And he did. In Kuwait City, he ran out of targets.”

  Helen Rodin said nothing.

  “But he didn’t run out of targets here,” Reacher said. “There had to have been a dozen people in that bottleneck. Or fifteen. More than ten, anyway. And he had a ten-round magazine. But he stopped shooting after six. Just stopped. He left four rounds in the gun. They’re listed right there in Bellantonio’s dog and pony show. And that’s what I meant. He fired the most he could fire in Kuwait City, and four less than the most he could fire here. Which makes the psychology different here. He chose not to run the table here. Why?”

  “Because he was hurrying?”

  “He had an autoloader. The voice-mail recording shows six shots in four seconds. Which means he could have fired ten in less than seven seconds. Three seconds wouldn’t have made any kind of a difference to him.”

  Helen said nothing.

  “I asked him,” Reacher said. “When I saw him in the hospital. I asked him how he would have done it, theoretically. Like a recon briefing. So he thought about it. He knows the area. He said he would have parked on the highway. Behind the library. He said he would have buzzed the window down and emptied the mag.”

  Helen said nothing.

  “But he didn’t empty the mag,” Reacher said. “He stopped shooting after six. Just stopped. Coldly and calmly. Which makes the whole dynamic different. This wasn’t a crazy man sent out to terrorize the city on a dare. He wasn’t pushed into it just for the fun of the carnage. This wasn’t random, Helen. It wasn’t psychotic. There was a specific, limited, coherent purpose behind it. Which reverses the focus. We should have seen it. We should have seen that this whole thing is about the victims, not the shooter. They weren’t just unlucky people in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “They were targets?” Helen said.

  “Carefully chosen,” Reacher said. “And as soon as they were safely down, Barr packed up and left. With four bullets remaining. A random psycho episode wouldn’t have panned out like that. He’d have kept on pulling the trigger until he clicked on empty. So this wasn’t a spree. It was an assassination.”

  Silence in
the office.

  “We need to look at who the victims were,” Reacher said. “And we need to look at who wanted them dead. That’s what’s going to lead us to where we need to be.”

  Helen Rodin didn’t move.

  “And we need to do it real fast,” Reacher said. “Because I don’t have much time and we already wasted the best part of three days looking at everything ass-backward.”

  The tired thirty-year-old doctor on the sixth floor of the county hospital was finishing up his afternoon rounds. He had left James Barr for last. Partly because he wasn’t expecting any dramatic change in his condition, and partly because he didn’t care anyway. Looking after sick thieves and swindlers was bad enough, but looking after a mass murderer was absurd. Doubly absurd, because straight after Barr was on his feet he was going to be laid back down on a gurney and some other doctor was going to come in and kill him.

  But ethical obligations are hard to ignore. As is habit. As is duty, and routine, and structure. So the doctor went into Barr’s room and picked up his chart. Took out his pen. Glanced at the machines. Glanced at the patient. He was awake. His eyes were moving.

  Alert, the doctor wrote.

  “Happy?” he asked.

  “Not really,” Barr said.

  Responsive, the doctor wrote.

  “Tough shit,” he said, and put his pen away.

  Barr’s right handcuff was rattling gently against the cot rail. His right hand itself was trembling and slightly cupped and the thumb and index finger were in constant motion, like he was trying to roll an imaginary ball of wax into a perfect sphere.

  “Stop that,” the doctor said.

  “Stop what?”

  “Your hand.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Is that new?”

  “A year or two.”

  “Not just since you woke up?”

  “No.”

  The doctor looked at the chart. Age: Forty-one.

  “Do you drink?” he asked.

  “Not really,” Barr said. “A sip sometimes, to help me sleep.”

  The doctor disbelieved him automatically and flipped through the chart to the tox screen and the liver function test. But the tox screen was clear and the liver function was healthy. Not a drinker. Not an alcoholic. Not even close.