trnBLx7T

1CHAPTER 7
2
3The room was overheated. You could have roasted chickens in it. There was a wide window with white venetian blinds closed against the sun. They glowed and filled the room with soft white light. There was medical equipment piled everywhere. A silent respirator, disconnected. IV stands and heart monitors. Tubes and bags and wires.
4
5Barr was flat on his back in a bed in the middle of the room. No pillow. His head was clamped in a brace. His hair was shaved and he had bandages over the holes they had drilled in his skull. His left shoulder was wrapped in bandages that reached to his elbow. His right shoulder was bare and unmarked. The skin there was pale and thin and marbled. His chest and his sides were bandaged. The bedsheet was folded down at his waist. His arms were straight at his sides and his wrists were handcuffed to the cot rails. He had IV needles taped to the back of his left hand. There was a peg on his right middle finger that was connected by a gray wire to a box. There were red wires leading out from under the bandages on his chest. They led to a machine with a screen. The screen was showing a rolling pattern that reminded Reacher of the cellular company’s recording of the gunshots. Sharp peaks, and long troughs. The machine made a muted beep every time a peak hit the screen.
6
7“Who’s there?” Barr asked.
8
9His voice was weak and rusty, and slow. And scared.
10
11“Who’s there?” he asked again. The way his head was clamped limited his field of vision. His eyes were moving, left and right, up and down.
12
13Reacher stepped closer. Leaned over the bed. Said nothing.
14
15“You,” Barr said.
16
17“Me,” Reacher said.
18
19“Why?”
20
21“You know why.”
22
23Barr’s right hand trembled. The motion put a ripple in the wire from the peg. The handcuff moved against the bed rail and made a quiet metallic sound.
24
25“I guess I let you down,” he said.
26
27“I guess you did.”
28
29Reacher watched Barr’s eyes, because they were the only part of him that could move. He was incapable of body language. His head was immobile and most of the rest of him was trussed up like a mummy.
30
31“I don’t remember anything,” Barr said.
32
33“You sure?”
34
35“It’s all blank.”
36
37“You clear on what I’ll do to you if you’re bullshitting me?”
38
39“I can guess.”
40
41“Triple it,” Reacher said.
42
43“I’m not bullshitting,” Barr said. “I just can’t remember anything.” His voice was quiet, helpless, confused. Not a defense, not a complaint. Not an excuse. Just a statement of fact, like a lament, or a plea, or a cry.
44
45“Tell me about the ballgame,” Reacher said.
46
47“It was on the radio.”
48
49“Not the TV?”
50
51“I prefer the radio,” Barr said. “For old times’ sake. That’s how it always was. When I was a kid. The radio, all the way from St. Louis. All those miles. Summer evenings, warm weather, the sound of baseball on the radio.”
52
53He went quiet.
54
55“You OK?” Reacher said.
56
57“My head hurts real bad. I think I had an operation.”
58
59Reacher said nothing.
60
61“I don’t like baseball on the TV,” Barr said.
62
63“I’m not here to discuss your media preferences.”
64
65“Do you watch baseball on TV?”
66
67“I don’t have a TV,” Reacher said.
68
69“Really? You should get one. You can get them for a hundred bucks. Maybe less, for a small one. Look in the Yellow Pages.”
70
71“I don’t have a phone. Or a house.”
72
73“Why not? You’re not still in the army.”
74
75“How would you know?”
76
77“Nobody’s still in the army. Not from back then.”
78
79“Some people are,” Reacher said, thinking about Eileen Hutton.
80
81“Officers,” Barr said. “Nobody else.”
82
83“I was an officer,” Reacher said. “You’re supposed to be able to remember stuff like that.”
84
85“But you weren’t like the others. That’s what I meant.”
86
87“How was I different?”
88
89“You worked for a living.”
90
91“Tell me about the ballgame.”
92
93“Why don’t you have a house? Are you doing OK?”
94
95“You worried about me now?”
96
97“Don’t like it when folks aren’t doing so well.”
98
99“I’m doing fine,” Reacher said. “Believe me. You’re the one with the problem.”
100
101“Are you a cop now? Here? I never saw you around.”
102
103Reacher shook his head. “I’m just a citizen.”
104
105“From where?”
106
107“From nowhere. Out in the world.”
108
109“Why are you here?”
110
111Reacher didn’t answer.
112
113“Oh,” Barr said. “To nail me.”
114
115“Tell me about the ballgame.”
116
117“It was the Cubs at the Cardinals,” Barr said. “Close game. Cards won, bottom ninth, walk-off.”
118
119“Home run?”
120
121“No, an error. A walk, a steal, then a groundout to second put the runner on third, one out. Soft grounder to short, check the runner, throw to first, but the throw went in the dugout and the run scored on the error. The winning run, without a hit in the inning.”
122
123“You remember it pretty well.”
124
125“I follow the Cards. I always have.”
126
127“When was this?”
128
129“I don’t even know what day it is today.”
130
131Reacher said nothing.
132
133“I can’t believe that I did what they say,” Barr said. “Just can’t believe it.”
134
135“Plenty of evidence,” Reacher said.
136
137“For real?”
138
139“No question.”
140
141Barr closed his eyes.
142
143“How many people?” he asked.
144
145“Five.”
146
147Barr’s chest started moving. Tears welled out of his closed eyes. His mouth opened in a ragged oval. He was crying, with his head in a vise.
148
149“Why did I do it?” he said.
150
151“Why did you do it the first time?” Reacher said.
152
153“I was crazy then,” Barr said.
154
155Reacher said nothing.
156
157“No excuses,” Barr said. “I was a different person then. I thought I’d changed. I was sure I had. I was good afterward. I tried real hard. Fourteen years, reformed.”
158
159Reacher said nothing.
160
161“I would have killed myself,” Barr said. “You know, back then. Afterward. I came close, a couple of times. I was so ashamed. Except those four guys from KC turned out to be bad. That was my only consolation. I clung on to it, like redemption.”
162
163“Why do you own all those guns?”
164
165“Couldn’t give them up. They were reminders. And they keep me straight. Too hard to stay straight without them.”
166
167“Do you ever use them?”
168
169“Occasionally. Not often. Now and then.”
170
171“How?”
172
173“At a range.”
174
175“Where? The cops checked.”
176
177“Not here. I go across the line to Kentucky. There’s a range there, cheap.”
178
179“You know the plaza downtown?”
180
181“Sure. I live here.”
182
183“Tell me how you did it.”
184
185“I don’t remember doing it.”
186
187“So tell me how you would do it. Theoretically. Like a recon briefing.”
188
189“What would the targets be?”
190
191“Pedestrians. Coming out of the DMV building.”
192
193Barr closed his eyes again. “That’s who I shot?”
194
195“Five of them,” Reacher said.
196
197Barr started crying again. Reacher moved away and pulled a chair from against a wall. He turned it around and sat down on it, backward.
198
199“When?” Barr said.
200
201“Friday afternoon.”
202
203Barr stayed quiet for a long time.
204
205“How did they catch me?” he asked.
206
207“You tell the story.”
208
209“Was it a traffic stop?”
210
211“Why would it be?”
212
213“I would have waited until late. Maybe just after five. Plenty of people then. I would have stopped on the highway behind the library. Where it’s raised. Sun in the west, behind me, no reflection off the scope. I would have opened the passenger window and lined it all up and emptied the mag and hit the gas again. Only way to get caught would be if a state trooper pulled me over for speeding and saw the rifle. But I think I would have been aware of that. Wouldn’t I? I think I would have hidden the rifle and driven slow. Not fast. Why would I have risked standing out?”
214
215Reacher said nothing.
216
217“What?” Barr said. “Maybe a trooper stopped to help me right there. Was that it? While I was parked? Maybe he thought I had a flat. Or I was out of gas.”
218
219“Do you own a traffic cone?” Reacher asked.
220
221“A what?”
222
223“A traffic cone.”
224
225Barr started to say no, but then he stopped.
226
227“I guess I’ve got one,” he said. “Not sure if I own it, exactly. I had my driveway blacktopped. They left a cone on the sidewalk to stop people driving on it. I had to leave it there three days. They never came back for it.”
228
229“So what did you do with it?”
230
231“I put it in the garage.”
232
233“Is it still there?”
234
235“I think so. I’m pretty sure.”
236
237“When was this driveway work done?”
238
239“Start of spring, I think. Months ago.”
240
241“You got receipts?”
242
243Barr tried to shake his head. Winced at the pressure from the clamp.
244
245“It was a gypsy crew,” he said. “I think they stole the blacktop from the city. Probably from where they were starting to fix First Street. I paid cash, quick and dirty.”
246
247“You got any friends?”
248
249“A few.”
250
251“Who are they?”
252
253“Just guys. One or two.”
254
255“Any new friends?”
256
257“I don’t think so.”
258
259“Women?”
260
261“They don’t like me.”
262
263“Tell me about the ballgame.”
264
265“I already did.”
266
267“Where were you? In the car? At home?”
268
269“Home,” Barr said. “I was eating.”
270
271“You remember that?”
272
273Barr blinked. “The shrink lady said I should try to remember the circumstances. It might bring more stuff back. I was in the kitchen, eating chicken, cold. With potato chips. I remember that. But that’s as far as I can get.”
274
275“Drink? Beer, juice, coffee?”
276
277“I don’t remember. I just remember listening to the game. I’ve got a Bose radio. It’s in the kitchen. There’s a TV in there too, but I always listen to the game, never watch. Like when I was a kid.”
278
279“How did you feel?”
280
281“Feel?”
282
283“Happy? Sad? Normal?”
284
285Barr went quiet again for a moment.
286
287“The shrink lady asked the same question,” he said. “I told her normal, but actually I think I was feeling happy. Like something good was on the horizon.”
288
289Reacher said nothing.
290
291“I really blew that call, didn’t I?” Barr said.
292
293“Tell me about your sister,” Reacher said.
294
295“She was just here. Before the lawyer came in.”
296
297“How do you feel about her?”
298
299“She’s all I’ve got.”
300
301“How far would you go to protect her?”
302
303“I would do anything,” Barr said.
304
305“What kind of anything?”
306
307“I’ll plead guilty if they let me. She’ll still have to move, maybe change her name. But I’ll spare her what I can. She bought me the radio. For the baseball. Birthday gift.”
308
309Reacher said nothing.
310
311“Why are you here?” Barr asked him.
312
313“To bury you.”
314
315“I deserve it.”
316
317“You didn’t fire from the highway. You were in the new parking garage.”
318
319“On First Street?”
320
321“North end.”
322
323“That’s nuts. Why would I fire from there?”
324
325“You asked your first lawyer to find me. On Saturday.”
326
327“Why would I do that? You ought to be the last person I wanted to see. You know about Kuwait City. Why would I want that brought up?”
328
329“What was the Cards’ next game?”
330
331“I don’t know.”
332
333“Try to remember. I need to understand the circumstances here.”
334
335“I can’t remember,” Barr said. “There’s nothing there. I remember that winning run, and that’s all. The announcers were going crazy. You know how they are. They were kind of incredulous. I mean, what a stupid way to lose a ballgame. But it’s the Cubs, right? They were saying they always find some way to lose.”
336
337“What about before the game? Earlier that day?”
338
339“I don’t remember.”
340
341“What would you normally be doing?”
342
343“Not much. I don’t do much.”
344
345“What happened in the Cardinals’ previous game?”
346
347“I don’t recall.”
348
349“What’s the next to last thing you remember?”
350
351“I’m not sure. The driveway?”
352
353“That was months ago.”
354
355“I remember going out somewhere,” Barr said.
356
357“When?”
358
359“Not sure. Recently.”
360
361“Alone?”
362
363“Maybe with people. I’m not sure. Not sure where, either.”
364
365Reacher said nothing. Just leaned back in his chair and listened to the quiet beep from the heart machine. It was running pretty fast. Both handcuffs were rattling.
366
367“What’s in the IVs?” Barr asked.
368
369Reacher squinted against the daylight and read the writing on the bags.
370
371“Antibiotics,” he said.
372
373“Not painkillers?”
374
375“No.”
376
377“I guess they think I don’t deserve any.”
378
379Reacher said nothing.
380
381“We go way back, right?” Barr said. “You and me?”
382
383“Not really,” Reacher said.
384
385“Not like we were friends.”
386
387“You got that right.”
388
389“But we were connected.”
390
391Reacher said nothing.
392
393“Weren’t we?” Barr asked.
394
395“In a way,” Reacher said.
396
397“So would you do something for me?” Barr asked. “As a favor?”
398
399“Like what?” Reacher said.
400
401“Pull the IV needles out of my hand.”
402
403“Why?”
404
405“So I can get an infection and die.”
406
407“No,” Reacher said.
408
409“Why not?”
410
411“Not time yet,” Reacher said.
412
413He stood up and put his chair back against the wall and walked out of the room. He processed out at the security desk and passed through the airlock and rode the elevator down to the street. Helen Rodin’s car wasn’t in the lot. She was already gone. She hadn’t waited for him. So he set out walking, all the way from the edge of town.
414
415 
416
417He picked his way past ten blocks of construction and went to the library first. It was getting late in the afternoon, but the library was still open. The sad woman at the desk told him where the old newspapers were kept. He started with the previous week’s stack of the same Indianapolis paper he had read on the bus. He ignored Sunday, Saturday, and Friday. He started with Thursday, Wednesday, and Tuesday, and he got a hit with the second paper he looked at. The Chicago Cubs had played a three-game series in St. Louis starting Tuesday. It was the series opener that had ended the way Barr had described. Tie game in the bottom of the ninth, a walk, a steal, a groundout, an error. The details were right there in Wednesday morning’s paper. A walk-off winning run without a hit in the inning. About ten in the evening, Tuesday. Barr had heard the announcers’ frenzied screams just sixty-seven hours before he opened fire.
418
419 
420
421Then Reacher backtracked all the way to the police station. Four blocks west, one block south. He wasn’t worried about its opening hours. It had looked like a 24/7 kind of a place to him. He went straight to the reception desk and claimed defense counsel’s right to another look at the evidence. The desk guy made a call to Emerson and then pointed Reacher straight to Bellantonio’s garage bay.
422
423Bellantonio met him there and unlocked the door. Not much had changed, but Reacher noticed a couple of new additions. New sheets of paper, behind plastic, pinned above and below the original pages on the cork boards, like footnotes or addenda or appendices.
424
425“Updates?” he asked.
426
427“Always,” Bellantonio said. “We never sleep.”
428
429“So what’s new?”
430
431“Animal DNA,” Bellantonio said. “Exact match of Barr’s dog’s hair to the scene.”
432
433“Where is the dog now?”
434
435“Put to sleep.”
436
437“That’s cold.”
438
439“That’s cold?”
440
441“The damn dog didn’t do anything wrong.”
442
443Bellantonio said nothing.
444
445“What else?” Reacher asked.
446
447“More tests on the fibers, and more ballistics. We’re beyond definite on everything. The Lake City ammo is relatively rare, and we’ve confirmed a purchase by Barr less than a year ago. In Kentucky.”
448
449“He used a range down there.”
450
451Bellantonio nodded. “We found that out, too.”
452
453“Anything else?”
454
455“The traffic cone came from the city’s construction department. We don’t know how or when.”
456
457“Anything else?”
458
459“I think that’s about it.”
460
461“What about the negatives?”
462
463“The negatives?”
464
465“You’re giving me all the good news. What about the questions that didn’t get answered?”
466
467“I don’t think there were any.”
468
469“You sure about that?”
470
471“I’m sure.”
472
473Reacher glanced around the square of cork boards, one more time, and carefully.
474
475“You play poker?” he asked.
476
477“No.”
478
479“Good decision. You’re a terrible liar.”
480
481Bellantonio said nothing.
482
483“You should start worrying,” Reacher said. “He slides, he’s going to sue your ass for the dog.”
484
485“He won’t slide,” Bellantonio said.
486
487“No,” Reacher said. “I don’t suppose he will.”
488
489 
490
491Emerson was waiting outside Bellantonio’s door. Jacket on, tie off. Frustration in his eyes, the way cops get when they’re snagged up in lawyer stuff.
492
493“Did you see him?” he asked. “At the hospital?”
494
495“He’s blank from Tuesday night onward,” Reacher said. “You’ve got a battle on your hands.”
496
497“Terrific.”
498
499“You should run safer jails.”
500
501“Rodin will bring experts in.”
502
503“His daughter already did.”
504
505“There are legal precedents.”
506
507“They go both ways, apparently.”
508
509“You want to see that piece of shit back on the street?”
510
511“Your screwup,” Reacher said. “Not mine.”
512
513“As long as you’re happy.”
514
515“Nobody’s happy,” Reacher said. “Not yet.”
516
517 
518
519He left the police station and walked all the way back to the black glass tower. Helen Rodin was at her desk, studying a sheet of paper. Danuta and Mason and Niebuhr had left. She was alone.
520
521“Rosemary asked her brother about Kuwait City,” she said. “She told me so, when she came out of his room at the hospital.”
522
523“And?” Reacher said.
524
525“He told her it was all true.”
526
527“Not a fun conversation, probably.”
528
529Helen Rodin shook her head. “Rosemary is pretty devastated. She says James is, too. He can’t believe he did it again. Can’t believe he threw fourteen years away.”
530
531Reacher said nothing. Silence in the office. Then Helen showed Reacher the sheet of paper she was reading.
532
533“Eileen Hutton is a Brigadier General,” she said.
534
535“Then she’s done well,” Reacher said. “She was a major when I knew her.”
536
537“What were you?”
538
539“A captain.”
540
541“Wasn’t that illegal?”
542
543“Technically. For her.”
544
545“She was in the JAG Corps.”
546
547“Lawyers can break the law, same as anyone else.”
548
549“She’s still in the JAG Corps.”
550
551“Obviously. They don’t retrain them.”
552
553“Based in the Pentagon.”
554
555“That’s where they keep the smart people.”
556
557“She’ll be here tomorrow.”
558
559Reacher said nothing.
560
561“For her deposition,” Helen said.
562
563Reacher said nothing.
564
565“It’s scheduled for four o’clock in the afternoon. Chances are she’ll fly down in the morning and check in somewhere. Because she’ll have to stay the night in town. Too late for a flight back.”
566
567“You going to ask me to take her out for dinner?”
568
569“No,” Helen said. “I’m not. I’m going to ask you to take her out for lunch. Before she meets with my father. I need to know in advance what she’s here for.”
570
571“They put Barr’s dog to sleep,” Reacher said.
572
573“It was old.”
574
575“That doesn’t bother you?”
576
577“Should it?”
578
579“The dog didn’t do anything to anyone.”
580
581Helen said nothing.
582
583“Which hotel will Hutton use?” Reacher asked.
584
585“I have no idea. You’ll have to catch her at the airport.”
586
587“What flight?”
588
589“I don’t know that, either. But there’s nothing direct from D.C. So I expect she’ll change planes in Indianapolis. She won’t get here before eleven in the morning.”
590
591Reacher said nothing.
592
593“I apologize,” Helen said. “For telling Danuta we didn’t have any evidence for the puppet master. I didn’t mean it to sound dismissive.”
594
595“You were right,” Reacher said. “We didn’t have any evidence. At the time.”
596
597She looked at him. “But?”
598
599“We do now.”
600
601“What?”
602
603“They’ve been gilding the lily over at the police station. They’ve got fibers, ballistics, dog DNA, a receipt for the ammunition all the way from someplace in Kentucky. The traced the traffic cone to the city. They’ve got all kinds of stuff.”
604
605“But?” Helen said again.
606
607“But they haven’t got James Barr on tape driving in to place the cone in the garage beforehand.”
608
609“Are you sure?”
610
611Reacher nodded. “They must have looked at the tapes a dozen times by now. If they had found him, they’d have printed the stills and pinned them up for the world to see. But they’re not there, which means they didn’t find them. Which means James Barr didn’t drive in and leave the cone beforehand.”
612
613“Which means someone else did.”
614
615“The puppet master,” Reacher said. “Or another of his puppets. Sometime after Tuesday night. Barr thinks the cone was still in his garage Tuesday.”
616
617Helen looked at him again. “Whoever it was must be on the tapes.”
618
619“Correct,” Reacher said.
620
621“But there’ll be hundreds of cars.”
622
623“You can narrow it down some. You’re looking for a sedan. Something too low-slung to get itself down a farm track.”
624
625“The puppet master really exists, doesn’t he?”
626
627“No other explanation for how it went down.”
628
629“Alan Danuta is probably right, you know,” Helen said. “My father will trade Barr for the puppet master. He’d be a fool not to.”
630
631Reacher said nothing.
632
633“Which means Barr is going to walk,” Helen said. “You understand that, right? There’s no alternative. The prosecution’s legal problems are overwhelming.”
634
635Reacher said nothing.
636
637“I’m not happy about it, either,” Helen said. “But for me it’s just a PR problem. I can spin my way out of it. At least I hope I can. I can blame it all on the way the jail was run. I can claim that it wasn’t me who got him off.”
638
639“But?” Reacher said.
640
641“What are you going to do? You came here to bury him and he’s going to walk.”
642
643“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Reacher said. “What choices do I have?”
644
645“Only two that I’m scared of. One, you could give up on helping me find the guy who’s pulling the strings. I can’t do it alone and Emerson won’t even be willing to try.”
646
647“And two?”
648
649“You could settle things with Barr yourself.”
650
651“That’s for sure.”
652
653“But you can’t do that. You’d go to prison for life if you were lucky.”
654
655“If I got caught.”
656
657“You would get caught. I would know you did it.”
658
659Reacher smiled. “You’d rat me out?”
660
661“I would have to,” Helen said.
662
663“Not if you were my lawyer. You couldn’t say a word.”
664
665“I’m not your lawyer.”
666
667“I could hire you.”
668
669“Rosemary Barr would know too, and she’d rat you out in a heartbeat. And Franklin. He heard you tell the story.”
670
671Reacher nodded.
672
673“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said again.
674
675“How do we find this guy?”
676
677“Like you said, why would I want to?”
678
679“Because I don’t think you’re the type who settles for half a loaf.”
680
681Reacher said nothing.
682
683“I think you want the truth,” Helen said. “I don’t think you like it when the wool gets pulled over your eyes. You don’t like being played for a sucker.”
684
685Reacher said nothing.
686
687“Plus, this whole situation stinks,” Helen said. “There were six victims here. The five who died and Barr himself.”
688
689“That expands the definition of victimhood a little too far for me.”
690
691“Dr. Niebuhr expects we’ll find a preexisting relationship. Probably recent. Some new friend. We could go at it that way.”
692
693“Barr told me he doesn’t have any new friends,” Reacher said. “Only has one or two old friends.”
694
695“Was he telling the truth?”
696
697“I think he was.”
698
699“So is Niebuhr wrong?”
700
701“Niebuhr’s guessing. He’s a shrink. All they do is guess.”
702
703“I could ask Rosemary.”
704
705“Would she know his friends?”
706
707“Probably. They’re pretty close.”
708
709“So get a list,” Reacher said.
710
711“Is Dr. Mason guessing, too?”
712
713“No question. But in her case I think she’s guessing right.”
714
715“If Niebuhr’s wrong about the friend, what do we do?”
716
717“We go proactive.”
718
719“How?”
720
721“There had to have been a guy following me last night and I know for sure there was one following me this morning. I saw him out there in the plaza. So the next time I see him I’ll have a word with him. He’ll tell me who he’s working for.”
722
723“Just like that?”
724
725“People usually tell me what I want to know.”
726
727“Why?”
728
729“Because I ask them nicely.”
730
731“Don’t forget to ask Eileen Hutton nicely.”
732
733“I’ll see you around,” Reacher said.
734
735 
736
737He walked south, beyond his hotel, and found a cheap place to eat dinner. Then he walked north, slowly, through the plaza, past the black glass tower, under the highway, all the way back to the sports bar. Altogether he was on the street the best part of an hour, and he saw nobody behind him. No damaged men in odd suits. Nobody at all.
738
739The sports bar was half-empty and there was baseball on every screen. He found a corner table and watched the Cardinals play the Astros in Houston. It was a listless late-season game between two teams well out of contention. During the commercial breaks he watched the door. Saw nobody. Tuesday was even quieter than Monday, out there in the heartland.
740
741 
742
743Grigor Linsky dialed his cell.
744
745“He’s back in the sports bar,” he said.
746
747“Did he see you?” the Zec asked.
748
749“No.”
750
751“Why is he in the sports bar again?”
752
753“No reason. He needed a destination, that’s all. He paraded around for nearly an hour, trying to make me show myself.”
754
755Silence for a beat.
756
757“Leave him there,” the Zec said. “Come in and we’ll talk.”
758
759 
760
761Alex Rodin called Emerson at home. Emerson was eating a late dinner with his wife and his two daughters, and he wasn’t thrilled about taking the call. But he did. He went out to the hallway and sat on the second-to-bottom stair, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, the phone trapped between his shoulder and his ear.
762
763“We need to do something about this Jack Reacher guy,” Rodin said to him.
764
765“I don’t see how he’s a huge problem,” Emerson said. “Maybe he wants to, but he can’t make the facts go away. We’ve got more than we need on Barr.”
766
767“This is not about facts now,” Rodin said. “It’s about the amnesia. It’s about how hard the defense is going to push it.”
768
769“That’s up to your daughter.”
770
771“He’s a bad influence on her. I’ve been reading the case law. It’s a real gray area. The test isn’t really about whether Barr remembers the day in question. It’s about whether he understands the process, right now, today, and whether we’ve got enough other stuff on him to convict without his direct testimony.”
772
773“I would say we do.”
774
775“Me too. But Helen needs to swallow that. She needs to agree. But she’s got that guy standing over her all the time, turning her head. I know her. She’s not going to suck it up until he’s out of the picture.”
776
777“I don’t see what I can do.”
778
779“I want you to bring him in.”
780
781“I can’t,” Emerson said. “Not without a complaint.”
782
783Rodin went quiet.
784
785“Well, keep an eye on him,” he said. “He spits on the sidewalk, I want you to bring him in and do something to him.”
786
787“This isn’t the Wild West,” Emerson said. “I can’t run him out of town.”
788
789“An arrest might be enough. We need something that breaks the spell. He’s pushing Helen where she doesn’t want to go. I know her. On her own she’ll give Barr up, no question.”
790
791 
792
793Linsky was in pain on the way back to his car. An hour on his feet was about all he could take. A long time ago the bones in his spine had been methodically cracked with an engineer’s ball-peen hammer, one after the other, starting with the coccyx and moving upward through all the lower vertebrae, and not in rapid sequence. Generally one bone had been allowed to heal before the next was broken. When the last had healed, they had started over again. Playing the xylophone, they had called it. Playing scales. Ultimately he had lost count of how many scales they had played on him.
794
795But he never spoke of it. Worse had happened to the Zec.
796
797The Cadillac had a soft seat and it was a relief to get in. It had a quiet motor and a gentle ride and a nice radio. Cadillacs were the kind of things that made America such a wonderful place, along with the trusting population and the hamstrung police departments. Linsky had spent time in several different countries and there was no question in his mind about which was the most satisfactory. Elsewhere he had walked or run or crawled through dirt or hauled carts and sleds by hand. Now he drove a Cadillac.
798
799He drove it to the Zec’s house, which stood eight miles north and west of town, next to his stone-crushing plant. The plant was a forty-year-old industrial facility built on a rich limestone seam that had been discovered under farmland. The house was a big fancy palace built a hundred years ago, when the landscape was still unspoiled, for a rich dry-goods merchant. It was bourgeois and affected in every way, but it was a comfortable house in the same way that the Cadillac was a comfortable car. Best of all it stood alone in the center of many acres of flat land. Once there had been beautiful gardens, but the Zec had razed the trees and leveled the shrubberies to create a completely flat and open vista all around. There were no fences, because how could the Zec bear to live another day behind wire? For the same reason there were no extra locks, no bolts, no bars. The openness was the Zec’s gift to himself. But it was also excellent security in its own right. There were surveillance cameras. Nobody could approach the house undetected. By day visitors were clearly visible at least two hundred yards away, and after dark night-vision enhancement picked them up only a little closer.
800
801Linsky parked and eased himself out of the car. The night was quiet. The stone-crushing plant shut down at seven every evening and sat brooding and silent until dawn. Linsky glanced in its direction and walked toward the house. The front door opened before he got near it. Warm light spilled out and he saw that Vladimir himself had come down to welcome him, which meant that Chenko had to be there too, upstairs, which meant that the Zec had assembled all his top boys, which meant that the Zec was worried.
802
803Linsky took a breath, but he walked inside without a moment’s hesitation. After all, what could be done to him that hadn’t been done to him before? It was different for Vladimir and Chenko, but for men with Linsky’s age and experience nothing was entirely unimaginable anymore.
804
805Vladimir said nothing. Just closed the door again and followed Linsky upstairs. It was a three-story house. The first floor was used for nothing at all, except surveillance. All the rooms were completely empty, except one that had four TV screens on a long table, showing wide-angle views north, east, south, and west. Sokolov would be in there, watching them. Or Raskin. They alternated twelve-hour shifts. The second floor of the house had a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and an office. The third floor had bedrooms and bathrooms. The second floor was where all the business was done.
806
807Linsky could hear the Zec’s voice from the living room, calling him. He went straight in without knocking. The Zec was in an armchair with a glass of tea clamped between his palms. Chenko was sprawled on a sofa. Vladimir pushed in behind Linsky and sat down next to Chenko. Linsky stood still and waited.
808
809“Sit, Grigor,” the Zec said. “Nobody’s upset at you. It was the boy’s failure.”
810
811Linsky nodded and sat down in an armchair, a little closer to the Zec than Chenko was. That maintained the hierarchy in the proper order. The Zec was eighty, and Linsky himself was more than sixty. Chenko and Vladimir were both in their forties, important men for sure, but comparative youngsters. They didn’t have the history that the Zec and Linsky shared. Not even close.
812
813“Tea?” the Zec asked in Russian.
814
815“Please,” Linsky said.
816
817“Chenko,” the Zec said. “Bring Grigor a glass of tea.”
818
819Linsky smiled inside. Chenko being made to serve him tea was a statement of the greatest importance. And he noted that Chenko did it with no unwillingness. He just got up out of his slouch and went out to the kitchen and came back in with a glass of tea on a small silver tray. Chenko was a very small man, short, wiry, no bulk at all. He had coarse black hair that stuck up in all directions even though he kept it cropped short. Vladimir was different. Vladimir was very tall and heavy and blond. Unbelievably strong. It was entirely possible that Vladimir had German genes somewhere in his background. Perhaps his grandmother had picked them up back in 1941, like germs.
820
821“We’ve been talking,” the Zec said.
822
823“And?” Linsky said.
824
825“We have to confront the fact that we made a mistake. Just one, but it could prove irksome.”
826
827“The cone,” Linsky said.
828
829“Obviously Barr isn’t on tape placing it,” the Zec said.
830
831“Obviously.”
832
833“But will it be a problem?”
834
835“Your opinion?” Linsky asked politely.
836
837“Significance is in the eye of the beholder,” the Zec said. “The detective Emerson and the DA Rodin won’t care about it. It’s a minor detail, one they won’t feel inclined to pursue. Why would they? They’re not looking to trip themselves up. And no case is ever a hundred percent perfect. They know that. So they’ll write it off as an inexplicable loose end. They might even convince themselves that Barr used a different vehicle.”
838
839“But?”
840
841“But it’s still a loose end. If the soldier tugs on it, something might unravel.”
842
843“The evidence against Barr is indisputable.”
844
845The Zec nodded. “That’s true.”
846
847“So won’t that be enough for them?”
848
849“Certainly it would have been. But it’s possible that Barr no longer exists. Not in the sense that he’s a legal entity accessible to their jurisprudence. He has permanent retrograde amnesia. It’s possible that Rodin won’t be able to put him on trial. If so, Rodin will be extremely frustrated about that. He’ll be expected to seek a consolation prize. And if the consolation prize were eventually to assume a higher profile than Barr himself, how could Rodin turn it down?”
850
851Linsky sipped his tea. It was hot and sweet.
852
853“All this from a videotape?” he said.
854
855“It depends entirely on the soldier,” the Zec said. “It depends on his tenacity and his imagination.”
856
857“He was a military cop,” Chenko said in English. “Did you know that?”
858
859Linsky glanced at Chenko. Chenko rarely spoke English in the house. He had a perfect American accent, and sometimes Linsky thought he was ashamed of it.
860
861“That doesn’t necessarily impress me,” Linsky said in Russian.
862
863“Or me,” the Zec said. “But it’s a factor we must weigh in the balance.”
864
865“Silencing him now would draw attention,” Linsky said. “Wouldn’t it?”
866
867“It would depend on how it was done.”
868
869“How many ways are there?”
870
871“We could use the redheaded girl again,” the Zec said.
872
873“She would be no use against the soldier. He’s a giant, and almost certainly extensively trained in self-defense.”
874
875“But he already has an established issue with her. Several people know she tried to set him up for a beating. Perhaps she could be found severely injured. If she was, the soldier would be the obvious prime suspect. We could let the police department silence him for us.”
876
877“She would know who attacked her,” Vladimir said. “She would know it wasn’t the soldier.”
878
879The Zec nodded appreciatively. Linsky watched him. He was accustomed to the Zec’s methods. The Zec liked to tease solutions out of people, like Socrates of old.
880
881“Then perhaps she should be left unable to tell anyone anything,” the Zec said.
882
883“Dead?”
884
885“We’ve always found that the safest way, haven’t we?”
886
887“But it’s possible she has many enemies,” Vladimir said. “Not just him. Maybe she’s a big-time prick-teaser.”
888
889“Then we should firm up the link. Possibly she should be found somewhere suggestive. Maybe he invited her out to renew their acquaintance.”
890
891“In his hotel?”
892
893“No, outside his hotel, I think. But close by. Where she can be discovered by someone other than the soldier himself. Someone who can call the police while the soldier is still asleep. That way he’s a sitting duck.”
894
895“Why would her body be outside his hotel?”
896
897“Evidently he hit her and she staggered away and collapsed before she got very far.”
898
899“The Metropole Palace,” Linsky said. “That’s where he is.”
900
901“When?” Chenko asked.
902
903“Whenever you like,” the Zec said.
904
905 
906
907The Astros beat the Cardinals 10–7 after a limp defensive performance by both franchises. Plenty of cheap hits, plenty of errors. A bad way to win, and a worse way to lose. Reacher had stopped paying attention halfway through. He had started thinking about Eileen Hutton instead. She was part of his mosaic. He had seen her once in the States before the Gulf War, just briefly across a crowded courtroom, just long enough to register her head-turning quality, and he had assumed he would never see her again, which he figured was a pity. But then she had showed up in Saudi as part of the long, ponderous Desert Shield buildup. Reacher had been there pretty much from the start, as a recently demoted captain. The first stage of any clean-sheet foreign deployment always resembled gang warfare between the MPs and the troops they were sent out with, but after six weeks or so the situation usually settled down some, and Desert Shield wasn’t any different. After six weeks there was a structure in place, and in terms of military law enforcement, a structure demanded in-country personnel all the way up from jailers to judges, and Hutton had shown up as one of the prosecutors they shipped in. Reacher had assumed it was volunteer duty for her, which he was happy about, because that made it likely she was unmarried.
908
909She was unmarried. First time their paths crossed, he checked her left hand and saw no ring. Then he checked her collar and saw a major’s oak leaves. That would make it a challenge, he figured, for a recently demoted captain. Then he checked her eyes and saw that the challenge would be worth it. Her eyes were blue and full of intelligence and mischief. And promise, he figured. And adventure. He had just turned thirty-one years old, and he was up for anything.
910
911The desert heat helped. Most of the time the temperature was above a hundred and twenty degrees, and apart from regular gas-attack practices, standard on-post dress devolved down to shorts and sleeveless undershirts. And in Reacher’s experience the close proximity of hot and nearly naked men and women always led somewhere good. Better than serving out November in Minnesota, that was for damn sure.
912
913The initial approach had promised to be tricky, given the disparity in rank. And when it came to it he fumbled it slightly, and was saved only because she was just as up for it as he was, and wasn’t afraid to let it show. After that it had been as smooth as silk, three long months. Good times. Then new orders had come through, like they always did eventually. He hadn’t even said goodbye to her. Didn’t get the chance. Never saw her again, either.
914
915I’ll see her again tomorrow, he thought.
916
917 
918
919He stayed in the bar until ESPN started recycling the highlights it had already shown once. Then he settled up his tab and stepped out to the sidewalk, into the yellow glare of the streetlights. He decided he wouldn’t go back to the Metropole Palace. He decided it was time for a change. No real reason. Just his normal restless instinct. Keep moving. Never stay in one place too long. And the Metropole was a gloomy old pile. Unpleasant, even by his undemanding standards. He decided to try the motor court instead. The one he had seen on his way to the auto parts store. The one next to the barbershop. Any Style $7. Maybe he could get a haircut before Hutton blew into town.
920
921 
922
923Chenko left the Zec’s house at midnight. He took Vladimir with him. If the redhead was to be beaten to death, then Vladimir would have to do it. It had to look right, forensically. Chenko was too small to inflict the kind of battering that an enraged six-foot-five, two-hundred-fifty-pound ex-soldier might be provoked to. But Vladimir was a different matter. Vladimir might well be able to do the job with a single blow, which might be convincing on the postmortem slab. A refusal, an objection, a sexual taunt, a big man might lash out once in frustration, a little harder than he intended.
924
925They were both familiar with the girl. They had met her before, because of her connection to Jeb Oliver. They had even all worked together once. They knew where she lived, which was in a rented garden apartment that nestled on a barren patch of land in the shadow of the state highway, where it first rose on its stilts, south and west of downtown. And they knew that she lived there alone.
926
927 
928
929Reacher walked a long aimless three-block circle before approaching the motor court. He kept his own footsteps light and listened hard for the gritty crunch of a shadow behind him. He heard nothing. Saw nothing. He was alone.
930
931The motor court was practically an antique. At one time it must have been the latest thing and consequently fairly upmarket. But since then the relentless march of time and fashion had left it behind. It was well maintained but not updated. It was exactly the kind of place he liked.
932
933He roused the clerk and paid cash for one night only. He used the name Don Heffner, who had played second base and hit .261 during the Yankees’ lean year of 1934. The clerk gave him a big brass key and pointed him down the row to room number eight. The room was faded and a little damp. The counterpane on the bed and the drapes at the window looked original. So did the bathroom. But everything worked and the door locked tight.
934
935He took a short shower and folded his pants and his shirt very carefully and put them flat under the mattress. That was as close as he ever got to ironing. They would look OK in the morning. He would shave and shower very carefully and go to the barbershop after breakfast. He didn’t want to devalue whatever memories Hutton might have retained. Assuming she had retained any at all.
936
937 
938
939Chenko parked east of the highway and he and Vladimir walked under it and approached the girl’s apartment building from the back, unseen. They kept close to the wall and walked around to her door. Chenko told Vladimir to keep out of sight. Then he knocked gently. There was no response, which wasn’t entirely unexpected. It was late, and she was probably already in bed. So Chenko knocked again, a little louder. And again, as loud as he dared. He saw a light come on in a window. Heard the quiet shuffle of feet inside. Heard her voice through the crack where the door met the jamb.
940
941“Who’s there?” she asked.
942
943“It’s me,” he said.
944
945“What do you want?”
946
947“We need to talk.”
948
949“I was asleep.”
950
951“I’m sorry.”
952
953“It’s awful late.”
954
955“I know,” Chenko said. “But it’s very urgent.”
956
957There was a pause.
958
959“Wait a minute,” she said.
960
961Chenko heard her shuffle back toward her bedroom. Then silence. Then she came back. The door opened. She was standing there, clutching a blue robe around her.
962
963“What?” she said.
964
965“You need to come with us,” Chenko said.
966
967Vladimir stepped out of the shadow.
968
969“Why is he here?” Sandy asked.
970
971“He’s helping me tonight,” Chenko said.
972
973“What do you want?”
974
975“You need to go out.”
976
977“Like this? I can’t.”
978
979“I agree,” Chenko said. “You need to get dressed. Like for a date.”
980
981“A date?”
982
983“You need to look really good.”
984
985“But I’ll have to shower. Do my hair.”
986
987“We have time.”
988
989“A date with who?”
990
991“You just have to be seen. Like you were ready for a date.”
992
993“At this time of night? The whole town is asleep.”
994
995“Not the whole town. We’re awake, for instance.”
996
997“How much do I get?”
998
999“Two hundred,” Chenko said. “Because it’s so late.”
1000
1001“How long will it take?”
1002
1003“Just a minute. You just have to be seen walking somewhere.”
1004
1005“I don’t know.”
1006
1007“Two hundred for a minute’s work isn’t bad.”
1008
1009“It isn’t a minute’s work. It’ll take me an hour to get ready.”
1010
1011“Two-fifty, then,” Chenko said.
1012
1013“OK,” Sandy said.
1014
1015 
1016
1017Chenko and Vladimir waited in her living room, listening through the thin walls, hearing the shower running, hearing the hair dryer, the held breaths as she put on her makeup, the elastic snap of undergarments, the whisper of fabric on skin. Chenko saw that Vladimir was restless and sweating. Not because of the task ahead. But because there was a woman in a state of undress in a nearby room. Vladimir was unreliable, in certain situations. Chenko was glad he was there to supervise. If he hadn’t been, the plan would have derailed for sure.
1018
1019Sandy walked into the living room after an hour, looking, as the Americans would say, like a million dollars. She was wearing a filmy black blouse that was nearly transparent. Underneath it was a black bra that molded her breasts into twin mounds of implausible roundness. She had on tight black pants that ended just below the knee. Pedal pushers? Capri pants? Chenko wasn’t sure of the name. She was wearing black high-heeled shoes. With her pale skin and her red hair and her green eyes she looked like a picture in a magazine.
1020
1021Pity, Chenko thought.
1022
1023“My money?” Sandy asked.
1024
1025“Afterward,” Chenko said. “When we bring you back.”
1026
1027“Let me see it.”
1028
1029“It’s in the car.”
1030
1031“So let’s go look at it,” Sandy said.
1032
1033They walked in single file. Chenko led the way. Sandy came next. Vladimir brought up the rear. They walked under the highway. The car was right there ahead of them. It was cold and misted-over. There was no money in it. None at all. Chenko knew that. So he stopped six feet short and turned around. Nodded to Vladimir.
1034
1035“Now,” he said.
1036
1037Vladimir reached forward with his right hand and put it on Sandy’s right shoulder from behind. He used it to turn her upper body sideways and then he crashed his left fist into her right temple, a little above and in front of her ear. It was a colossal blow. Explosive. Her head snapped violently sideways and around, and her legs gave way and she fell to the ground vertically like an empty suit of clothes slipping off a hanger.
1038
1039Chenko squatted down next to her. Waited a moment for the body to settle and then felt the neck for a pulse. There wasn’t one.
1040
1041“You broke her neck,” he said.
1042
1043Vladimir nodded.
1044
1045“It’s about placement,” he said. “The main vector is mostly sideways, obviously, but you try for a little rotation, too. So it’s not so much a break. It’s more like a wrenching action. Like a hangman’s noose.”
1046
1047“Is your hand OK?”
1048
1049“It will be tender tomorrow.”
1050
1051“Good work.”
1052
1053“I try my best.”
1054
1055They unlocked the car and raised the rear armrest and laid the body across the back seat. There was just enough space, side to side. She had been a small girl. Not tall. Then they got in the front together and drove off. They looped well to the east and came up on the Metropole Palace from behind. They avoided the bay where the garbage was piled and found a side alley. They stopped outside a fire exit. Vladimir slid out and opened the rear door. Pulled the body out by the shoulders and left it where it fell. Then he got back in. Chenko drove on and paused after five yards and turned in his seat. The body was lying in a heap against the alley’s far wall. Directly opposite the fire door. It looked like a plausible scenario. She had fled the soldier’s room in shame and panic, chosen not to wait for the elevator, and run down the fire stairs and out into the night. Maybe she had stumbled at that point and aggravated an injury already done to her. Maybe she had tripped and fallen against the wall, and the shock had dislodged an already-wrenched vertebra.
1056
1057Chenko turned back and faced front and drove on, not fast, not slow, not drawing attention, not standing out, eight miles north and west, all the way back to the Zec’s house.