The Hard Way

by Lee Child

  "He was good," Groom said. "SAS is a good outfit. Better than Delta, maybe. Brits are usually more ruthless. It's in their genes. They ruled the world for a long time, and they didn't do it by being nice. An SAS veteran would be second only to a Recon Marine veteran, that would be my opinion. So yes, Gregory was right. Taylor was good."

  "What was he like as a person?"

  "Off duty he was gentle. He was good with the kid. Mrs. Lane seemed to like him. There's two types of people here. Like an inner circle and an outer circle. Taylor was inner circle. I'm outer circle. I'm all

  business. I m kind of stunted, in a social situation. I can admit it. I'm nothing, away from the action. Some of the others can be both."

  "Were you here five years ago?"

  "For Anne? No, I came just after. But there can't be a connection." So I heard," Reacher said.

  The clock in Reacher's head ticked around to four-thirty in the afternoon. For Kate and Jade, the third day. Probably fifty-four hours since the snatch. Fifty-four hours was an incredibly long time for a kidnap to sustain itself. Most were over in less than twenty-four, one way or the other, good result or bad. Most law enforcement people gave up after thirty-six. Each passing minute made the likely outcome more and more dire.

  Around a quarter to five in the afternoon Lane came back into the room and people started drifting in after him. Gregory, Addison, Burke, Kowalski. Perez came in. The vigil around the telephone started up again unannounced. Lane stood next to the table. The others grouped themselves around the room, all facing the same way, inward. There was no doubt about the center of their attention.

  But the phone didn't ring.

  "Has that thing got a speaker?" Reacher asked.

  "No," Lane said.

  "What about in the office?"

  "I can't do it," Lane said. "It would be a change. It would unsettle them."

  The phone didn't ring.

  "Hang in there," Reacher said.

  In her apartment across the street the woman who had been watching the building picked up her phone and dialed.

  CHAPTER

  12

  THE WOMAN ACROSS the street was called Patricia Joseph, Patti to her few remaining friends, and she was dialing an NYPD detective named Brewer. She had his home number. He answered on the second ring.

  "I've got some activity to report," Patti said.

  Brewer didn't ask who his caller was. He didn't need to. He knew Patti Joseph's voice about as well as he knew anybody's.

  "Go ahead," he said.

  "There's a new character on the scene."

  "Who?"

  "I don't have a name for him yet."

  "Description?"

  "Very tall, heavily built, like a real brawler. He's in his late thirties or early forties. Short fair hair, blue eyes. He showed up late last night."

  "One of them?" Brewer asked.

  "He doesn't dress like them. And he's much bigger than the rest. But he acts like them."

  "Acts? What have you seen him do?"

  "The way he walks. The way he moves. The way he holds himself."

  So you think he's ex-military, too?"

  "Almost certainly."

  "OK," Brewer said. "Good work. Anything else?"

  "One thing," Patti Joseph said. "I haven't seen the wife or the daughter in a couple of days."

  Inside the Dakota living room the phone rang at what Reacher figured was five o'clock exactly. Lane snatched the receiver out of the cradle and clamped it to his ear. Reacher heard the drone and squawk of the electronic machine, faint and muffled. Lane said, "Put Kate on," and there was a long, long pause. Then a woman's voice, loud and clear. But not calm. Lane closed his eyes. Then the electronic squawk came back and Lane opened his eyes again. The squawk droned on for a whole minute. Lane listened, his face working, his eyes moving. Then the call ended. Just cut off before Lane had a chance to say anything

  more.

  He put the receiver back in the cradle. His face was half-filled with hope, half-filled with despair.

  "They want more money," he said. "Instructions in an hour."

  "Maybe I should get down there right now," Reacher said. "Maybe they'll throw us a curveball by changing the time interval."

  But Lane was already shaking his head. "They threw us a different kind of curveball. They said they're changing the whole procedure. It's not going to be the same as before."

  Silence in the room.

  "Is Mrs. Lane OK?" Gregory asked.

  Lane said, "There was a lot of fear in her voice."

  "What about the guy's voice?" Reacher asked. "Anything?"

  "It was disguised. Same as always."

  "But beyond the sound. Think about this call and all the other calls. Word choice, word order, cadence, rhythm, flow. Is it an American or a foreigner?"

  "Why would it be a foreigner?"

  "Your line of work, if you've got enemies, some of them might be foreign."

  "It's an American," Lane said. "I think." He closed his eyes again and concentrated. His lips moved like he was replaying conversations in his head. "Yes, American. Certainly a native speaker. No stumbles. Never any weird or unusual words. Just normal, like you would hear all the time."

  "Same guy every time?"

  "I think so."

  "What about this time? Anything different? Mood? Tension? Is he still in control or is he losing it?"

  "He sounded OK," Lane said. "Relieved, even." Then he paused. "Like this whole thing was nearly over. Like this might be the final installment."

  "It's too soon," Reacher said. "We're not even close yet."

  "They're calling the shots," Lane said.

  Nobody spoke.

  "So what do we do now?" Gregory asked.

  "We wait," Reacher said. "Fifty-six minutes."

  "I'm sick of waiting," Groom said.

  "It's all we can do," Lane said. "We wait tor instructions and we obey them."

  "How much money?" Reacher asked. "Ten?"

  Lane looked right at him. "Guess again."

  "More?"

  "Four and a half," Lane said. "That's what they want. Four million five hundred thousand U.S. dollars. In a bag."

  CHAPTER

  13

  REACHER SPENT THE remaining fifty-five minutes puzzling over the choice of amount. It was a bizarre figure. A bizarre progression. One, five, four and a half. Altogether ten and a half million dollars. It felt like a destination figure. Like the end of a road. But it was a bizarre total. Why stop there? It made no kind of sense at all. Or did it?

  "They know you," he said to Lane. "But maybe not all that well. As it happens you could afford more, but maybe they don't fully appreciate that. So was there a time when ten and a half million was all the cash you had?"

  But Lane just said, "No."

  "Could someone out there have that impression?"

  "No," Lane said again. "I've had less and I've had more."

  "But you've never had exactly ten and a half?"

  "No," Lane said for the third time. "There's absolutely no reason for anyone to believe that they're cleaning me out at ten and a half."

  So Reacher gave it up and just waited for the phone to ring.

  It rang right on time, at six in the evening. Lane picked it up and listened. He didn't speak. He didn't ask for Kate. Reacher figured he had learned that the privilege of hearing his wife's voice was reserved for the first call in any given sequence. The demand call. Not the instruction call.

  This instruction call lasted less than two minutes. Then the electronic squawk cut off abruptly and Lane put the receiver back in the cradle and gave a bitter little half-smile, like he was reluctantly admiring a hated opponent's skill.

  "This is the final installment," he said. "After this, it's over. They promise I get her back."

  Too soon, Reacher thought. Ain't going to happen.

  Gregory asked, "What do we do?"

  "One hour from now," Lane said. "One man leaves here alone with the mon
ey in the black BMW and cruises anywhere he wants. He'll be carrying my cell phone and he'll get a call anywhere between one and twenty minutes into the ride. He'll be given a destination. He's to keep the line open from that point on so they know he's not conversing with anyone else in the car or on any other phones or on any kind of a radio net. He'll drive to the destination he's been given. He'll find the Jaguar parked on the street there. The car that Taylor drove Kate in, the first morning. It'll be unlocked. He's to put the money on the back seat and drive away and not look back. Any chase cars, any coordination with anyone else, any tricks at all, and Kate dies."

  "They've got your cell phone number?" Reacher asked.

  "Kate will have given it to them."

  "I'll be the driver," Gregory said. "If you want."

  "No," Lane said. "I want you here."

  "I'll do it," Burke said. The black guy.

  Lane nodded. "Thank you."

  "Then what?" Reacher asked. "How do we get her back?"

  Lane said, "After they've counted the money, there'll be another call."

  "On the cell or here?"

  "Here," Lane said. "It will take some time. Counting large sums is an arduous process. Not for me at this end. The money is already bricked and banded and labeled. But they won't trust that. They'll break the bands and examine the bills and count them by hand."

  Reacher nodded. It was a problem he had never really considered before. If the money was in hundreds, that would give them forty-five thousand bills. If they could count to a hundred every sixty seconds, that would take them four hundred and fifty minutes, which was seven and a half hours. Maybe six hours drive time, and seven and a half counting time. A long night ahead, he thought. For them and for us.

  Lane said, "Why are they using the Jaguar?"

  "It's a taunt," Reacher said. "It's to remind you."

  Lane nodded.

  "Office," he said. "Burke, and Reacher."

  In the office Lane took a small silver Samsung phone out of a charging cradle and handed it to Burke. Then he disappeared, to his bedroom, maybe.

  "Gone to get the money," Burke said.

  Reacher nodded. Gazed at the twin portraits on the desk. Two beautiful women, both equally stunning, roughly the same age, but with no real similarities. Anne Lane had been blonde and blue, somehow a child of the sixties even though she must have been born well after that decade was over. She had long straight hair parted in the middle, like a singer or a model or an actress. She had clear guileless eyes and an innocent smile. A flower child, even though house or hip hop or acid jazz would have been the thing when she got her first record player. Kate Lane was more a child of the eighties or nineties. More subtle, more worldly, more accomplished.

  "No kids with Anne, right?" Reacher asked.

  "No," Burke said. "Thank God."

  So maybe motherhood accounted for the difference. There was a weight to Kate, a gravity, a heft, not physical, but somewhere deep inside her. Choose one to spend the night with, you might well pick Anne. To spend the week with, you might want Kate.

  Lane came back awkwardly with a bulging leather bag. He dropped the bag on the floor and sat down at his desk.

  "How long?" he asked.

  "Forty minutes," Reacher said.

  Burke checked his watch.

  "Yes," he said. "Forty minutes."

  "Go wait in the other room," Lane said. "Leave me alone."

  Burke went for the bag but Reacher picked it up for him. It was heavy and wide, and easier for a big guy to manage. He carried it to the foyer and dropped it near the door where its predecessor had waited twelve hours before. It flopped and settled like the same dead animal.

  Reacher took a seat and started counting off the minutes. Burke paced. Carter Groom drummed his fingers on the arm of a chair, frustrated. The Re-con Marine, beached. I'm all business, he had said. I'm

  nothing, away from the action. Next to him Gregory sat quiet, all British reserve. Next to him was Perez, the Latino, tiny. Next to him was Addison, with the scarred face. A knife, probably, Reacher thought. Then Kowalski, taller than the others but still small next to Reacher himself. Special Forces guys were usually small. They were usually lean, fast, and whippy. Built for endurance and stamina and full of smarts and cunning. Like foxes, not like bears.

  Nobody talked. There was nothing to talk about, except the fact that the end of a kidnap was always the period of greatest risk. What was there that compelled kidnappers to keep their word? Honor? A sense of business ethics? Why risk a complex transfer when a shallow grave and a bullet in the victim's head were a whole lot safer and simpler? Humanity? Decency? Reacher glanced at Kate Lane's picture next to the phone and went a little cold. She was closer to dead now than at any point in the last three days, and he knew it. He guessed they all knew it.

  "Time," Burke said. "I'm going."

  "I'll carry the bag for you," Reacher said. "You know, down to the car."

  They rode down in the elevator. In the ground floor lobby a small dark woman in a long black coat swept past surrounded by tall men in suits, like staff or assistants or bodyguards.

  "Was that Yoko?" Reacher said.

  But Burke didn't answer. He just walked past the doorman and out to the curb. The black BMW was waiting there. Burke opened the rear door.

  "Stick the bag on the back seat," he said. "Easier for me that way, for a seat-to-seat transfer."

  "I'm coming with you," Reacher said.

  That's stupid, man."

  "I'll be on the floor in back. It'll be safe enough."

  "What's the point?"

  'We have to do something. You know as well as I do there's not going to be any cute little Checkpoint Charlie scene in this story. She's not going to come tottering toward us through the mist and the fog, smiling bravely, with Jade holding her hand. That's not going to happen. So we're going to have to get proactive at some point."

  "What are you planning to do?"

  "After you've switched the bag I'll get out around the next corner. I'll double back and see what I can see."

  "Who says you'll see anything?"

  "They'll have four and a half million bucks sitting in an unlocked car. My guess is they won't leave it there very long. So I'll see something."