by Lee Child
After a second hour tacked on to the first I figured they must be coming all the way from D.C., which implied a small specialist outfit. Anyone else would have a field office closer to hand. I gave up speculating and tipped my chair back and put my feet on the table and went to sleep.
* * *
I didn’t find out exactly who they were. Not then. They wouldn’t tell me. At five in the morning three men in suits came in and woke me up. They were polite and businesslike. Their suits were mid-priced and clean and pressed. Their shoes were polished. Their eyes were bright. Their haircuts were fresh and short. Their faces were pink and ruddy. Their bodies were stocky but toned. They looked like they could run half-marathons without much trouble, but without much enjoyment, either. My first impression was recent ex-military. Gung-ho staff officers, head-hunted into some limestone building inside the Beltway. True believers, doing important work. I asked to see ID and badges and credentials, but they quoted the Patriot Act at me and said they weren’t obliged to identify themselves. Probably true, and they certainly enjoyed saying so. I considered clamming up in retaliation, but they saw me considering, and quoted some more of the Act at me, which left me in no doubt at all that a world of trouble lay at the end of that particular road. I am afraid of very little, but hassle with today’s security apparatus is always best avoided. Franz Kafka and George Orwell would have given me the same advice. So I shrugged and told them to go ahead and ask their questions.
They started out by saying that they were aware of my military service and very respectful of it, which was either a bullshit boilerplate platitude, or meant that they had been recruited out of the MPs themselves. Nobody respects an MP except another MP. Then they said that they would be observing me very closely and would know whether I was telling the truth or lying. Which was total bullshit, because only the best of us can do that, and these guys weren’t the best of us, otherwise they would have been in very senior positions, meaning that right then they would have been home and asleep in a Virginia suburb, rather than running up and down 1- 95 in the middle of the night.
But I didn’t have anything to hide, so I told them again to go ahead.
They had three areas of concern. The first: Did I know the woman who had killed herself on the train? Had I ever seen her before?
I said, ‘No.’ Short and sweet, quiet but firm.
They didn’t follow up with supplementaries. Which told me roughly who they were and exactly what they were doing. They were somebody’s B team, sent north to dead-end an open investigation. They were walling it off, burying it, drawing a line under something somebody had been only half suspicious about to begin with. They wanted a negative answer to every question, so that the file could be closed and the matter put to bed. They wanted a positive absence of loose ends, and they didn’t want to draw attention to the issue by making it a big drama. They wanted to get back on the road with the whole thing forgotten.
The second question was: Did I know a woman called Lila Hoth?
I said, ‘No,’ because I didn’t. Not then.
The third question was more of a sustained dialogue. The lead agent opened it. The main man. He was a little older and a little smaller than the other two. Maybe a little smarter, too. He said, ‘You approached the woman on the train.’
I didn’t reply. I was there to answer questions, not to comment on statements.
The guy asked, ‘How close did you get?’
‘Six feet,’ I said. ‘Give or take.’
‘Close enough to touch her?’
‘No.’
‘If you had extended your arm, and she had extended hers, could you have touched hands?’
‘Maybe,’ I said.
‘Is that a yes or a no?’
‘It’s a maybe. I know how long my arms are. I don’t know how long hers were.’
‘Did she pass anything to you?’
‘No.’
‘Did you accept anything from her?’
‘Did you take anything from her after she was dead?
‘No.’
‘Did anyone else?’
‘Not that I saw.’
‘Did you see anything fall from her hand, or her bag, or her clothing?’
‘No.’
‘Did she tell you anything?’
‘Nothing of substance.’
‘Did she speak to anyone else?’
‘No.’
The guy asked, ‘Would you mind turning out your pockets?’
I shrugged. I had nothing to hide. I went through each pocket in turn and dumped the contents on the battered table. A folded wad of cash money and a few coins. My old passport. My ATM card. My clip-together toothbrush. The Metrocard that had gotten mc into the subway in the first place. And Theresa Lee’s business card.
The guy stirred through my stuff with a single extended finger and nodded to one of his underlings, who stepped up close to pat me down. He did a semi-expert job and found nothing more and shook his head.
The main guy said, ‘Thank you, Mr Reacher.’
And then they left, all three of them, as quickly as they had come in. I was a little surprised, but happy enough. I put my stuff back in my pockets and waited for them to clear the corridor and then I wandered out. The place was quiet. I saw Theresa Lee doing nothing at a desk and her partner Docherty walking a guy across the squad room to a cubicle at the back. The guy was a worn-out mid-sized forty-something. He had on a creased grey T-shirt and a pair of red sweat pants. He had left home without combing his hair. That was clear. It was grey and sticking up all over the place. Theresa Lee saw me looking and said, ‘Family member.’
‘The woman’s?’
Lee nodded. ‘She had contact details in her wallet. That’s her brother. He’s a cop himself. Small town in New Jersey. He drove straight over.’
‘Poor guy.’
‘I know. We didn’t ask him to make the formal ID. She’s too messed up. We told him that a closed casket is the way to go. He got the message.’
‘So are you sure it’s her?’
Lee nodded again. ‘Fingerprints.’
‘Who was she?’
‘I’m not allowed to say.’
‘Am I done here?’
‘The feds finished with you?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Then beat it. You’re done.’
I made it to the top of the stairs and she called after me. She said, ‘I didn’t mean it about tipping her over the edge.’
‘Yes, you did,’ I said. ‘And you might have been right.’
* * *
I stepped out into the dawn cool and turned left on 35th Street and headed east. You’re done. But I wasn’t. Right there on the corner were four more guys waiting to talk to me. Similar types as before, but not federal agents. Their suits were too expensive.
TEN
The world is the same jungle all over, but New York is its purest distillation. What is useful elsewhere is vital in the big city. You see four guys bunched on a corner waiting for you, you either run like hell in the opposite direction without hesitation, or you keep on walking without slowing down or speeding up or breaking stride. You look ahead with studied neutrality, you check their faces, you look away, like you’re saying is that all you got?
Truth is, it’s smarter to run. The best fight is the one you don’t have. But I have never claimed to be smart. Just obstinate, and occasionally bad-tempered. Some guys kick cats. I keep walking.
The suits were all midnight blue and looked like they came from the kind of store that has a foreign person’s name above the door. The men inside the suits looked capable. Like NCOs. Wise to the ways of the world, proud of their ability to get the job done. They were certainly ex-military, or ex-law enforcement, or ex-both. They were the kind of guys who had taken a step up in salary and a step away from rules and regulations, and regarded both moves as equally valuable.
They separated into two pairs when I was still four paces away. Left me room to pass if I wanted to, but
the front guy on the left used both palms a little and patted the air, in a kind of dual-purpose please stop and we’re no threat gesture. I spent the next step deciding. You can’t let yourself get caught in the middle of four guys. Either you stop early or you barge on through. At that point my options were still open. Easy to stop, easy to keep going. If they closed ranks while I was still moving, they would go down like ninepins. I weigh 250 and was moving at four miles an hour. They didn’t, and weren’t.
Two steps out, the lead guy said, ‘Can we talk?’
I stopped walking. Said, ‘About what?’
‘You’re the witness, right?’
‘But who are you?’
The guy answered by peeling back the flap of his suit coat, slow and unthreatening, showing me nothing except a red satin lining and a shirt. No gun, no holster, no belt. He put his right fingers into his left inside pocket and came out with a business card. Leaned forward and handed it to me. It was a cheap product. The first line said: Sure and Certain, Inc. The second line said: Protection, Investigation, Intervention. The third line had a telephone number, with a 212 area code. Manhattan.
‘Kinko’s is a wonderful place,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it? Maybe I’ll get nine cards that say John Smith, King of the World.’
‘The card is legit,’ the guy said. ‘And we’re legit.’
‘Who are you working for?’
‘We can’t say.’
‘Then I can’t help you.’
‘Better that you talk to us than our principal. We can keep things civilized.’
‘Now I’m really scared.’
‘Just a couple of questions. That’s all. Help us out. We’re just working stiffs, trying to get paid. Like you.’
‘I’m not a working stiff. I’m a gentleman of leisure.’
‘Then look down on us from your lofty perch and take pity.’
‘What questions?’
‘Did she give anything to you?’
‘Who?’
‘You know who. Did you take anything from her?’
‘And? What’s the next question?’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘She said plenty. She was talking all the way from Bleecker to Grand Central.’
‘Saying what?’
‘I didn’t hear very much of it.’
‘Information?’
‘I didn’t hear.’
‘Did she mention names?’
‘She might have.’
‘Did she say the name Lila Hoth?’
‘Not that I heard.’
‘Did she say John Sansom?’
I didn’t answer. The guy asked, ‘What?’
I said, ‘I heard that name somewhere.’
‘From her?’
‘No.’
‘Did she give you anything?’
‘What kind of a thing?’
‘Anything at all.’
‘Tell me what difference it would make.’
‘Our principal wants to know.’
‘Tell him to come ask me himself.’
‘Better to talk to us.’
I smiled and walked on, through the alley they had created. But one of the guys on the right sidestepped and tried to push me back. I caught him shoulder-to-chest and spun him out of my way. He came after me again and I stopped and started and feinted left and right and slid in behind him and shoved him hard in the back so that he stumbled on ahead of me. His jacket had a single centre vent. French tailoring. British suits favour twin side vents and Italian suits favour none at all. I leaned down and caught a coat tail in each hand and heaved and tore the seam all the way up the back. Then I shoved him again. He stumbled ahead and veered right. His coal was hanging off him by the collar. Unbuttoned at the front, open at the back, like a hospital gown.
Then I ran three steps and stopped and turned around. It would have been much more stylish to just keep on walking slowly, but also much dumber. Insouciance is good, but being ready is better. The four of them were caught in a moment of real indecision. They wanted to come get me. That was for sure. But they were on West 35th Street at dawn. At that hour virtually all the traffic would be cops. So in the end they just gave me hard looks and moved away. They crossed 35th in single file and waded south at the corner.
You’re done.
But I wasn’t. I turned to move away and a guy came out of the precinct house and ran after me. Creased grey T-shirt, red sweat pants, grey hair sticking up all over the place. The family member. The brother. The small-town cop from Jersey. He caught up with me and grabbed my elbow in a wiry grip and told me he had seen me inside and had guessed I was the witness. Then he told me his sister hadn’t committed suicide.
ELEVEN
I took the guy to a coffee shop on Eighth Avenue. A long time ago I was sent on a one-day MP seminar at Fort Rucker, to learn sensitivity around the recently bereaved. Sometimes MPs had to deliver bad news to relatives. We called them death messages. My skills were widely held to be deficient. I used to walk in and just tell them. I thought that was the nature of a message. But apparently I was wrong. So I was sent to Rucker. I learned good stuff there. I learned to take emotions seriously. Above all I learned that cafés and diners and coffee shops were good environments for bad news. The public atmosphere limits the likelihood of falling apart, and the process of ordering and waiting and sipping punctuates the flow of information in a way that makes it easier to absorb.
We took a booth next to a mirror. That helps, too. You can look at each other in the glass. Face to face, but not really. The place was about half full. Cops from the precinct, taxi drivers on their way to the West Side garages. We ordered coffee. I wanted food too, hut I wasn’t going to eat if he didn’t. Not respectful. He said he wasn’t hungry. I sat quiet and waited. Let them talk first, the Rucker psychologists had said.
He told me that his name was Jacob Mark. Originally Markakis in his grandfather’s day, back when a Greek name was no good to anyone, except if you were in the deli business, which his grandfather wasn’t. His grandfather was in the construction business. Hence the change. He said I could call him Jake. I said he could call me Reacher. He told me he was a cop. I told him I had been one once, in the military. He told me he wasn’t married and lived alone. I said the same went for me. Establish common ground, the teachers at Rucker had said. Up close and looking past his physical disarray he was a squared-away guy. He had any cop’s weary gloss, but under it lay a normal suburban man. With a different guidance counsellor he might have become a science teacher or a dentist or an auto parts manager. He was in his forties, already very grey, but his face was youthful and unlined. His eyes were dark and wide and staring, but that was temporary. Some hours ago, when he went to bed, he must have been a handsome man. I liked him on sight, and I felt sorry for his situation.
He took a breath and told me his sister’s name was Susan Mark. At one time Susan Molina, but many years divorced and reverted. Now living alone. He talked about her in the present tense. He was a long way from acceptance.
He said, ‘She can’t have killed herself. It’s just not possible.’
I said, ‘Jake, I was there.’
The waitress brought our coffee and we sipped in silence for a moment. Passing time, letting reality sink in just a little more. The Rucker psychologists had been explicit: the suddenly bereaved have the IQ of Labradors. Indelicate, because they were army, but accurate, because they were psychologists.
Jake said, ‘So tell rue what happened.’
I asked him, ‘Where are you from?’
He named a small town in northern New Jersey, well inside the New York metro area, full of commuters and soccer moms, prosperous, safe, contented. He said the police department was well funded, well equipped, and generally understretched. I asked him if his department had a copy of the Israeli list. He said that after the Twin Towers every police department in the country had been buried under paper, and every officer had been required to learn every point on every list.
&nbs
p; I said, ‘Your sister was behaving strangely, Jake. She rang every bell. She looked like a suicide bomber.’
‘Bullshit,’ he said, like a good brother should.
‘Obviously she wasn’t,’ I said. ‘But you would have thought the same thing. You would have had to, with your training.’
‘So the list is more about suicide than bombing.’
‘Apparently.’
‘She wasn’t an unhappy person.’
‘She must have been.’
He didn’t reply. We sipped a little more. People came and went. Checks were paid, tips were left. Traffic built up on Eighth.
I said, ‘Tell me about her.’
He asked, ‘What gun did she use?’
‘An old Ruger Speed-Six.’
‘Our dad’s gun. She inherited it.’
‘Where did she live? Here, in the city?’
He shook his head. ‘ Annandale, Virginia.’
‘Did you know she was up here?’ He shook his head again.
‘Why would she come?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why would she be wearing a winter coat?’
‘I don’t know.’
I said, ‘Some federal agents came and asked me questions. Then some private guys found me, just before you did. They were all talking about a woman called Lila Hoth. You ever hear that name from your sister?’
‘No.’
‘What about John Sansom?’
‘He’s a congressman from North Carolina. Wants to be a senator. Some kind of hard-ass.’
I nodded. I remembered, vaguely. Election season was gearing up. I had seen newspaper stories and television coverage. Sansom had been a late entrant to politics and was a rising star. He was seen as tough and uncompromising. And ambitious. He had done well in business for a spell and before that he had done well in the army. He hinted at a glamorous Special Forces career without supplying details. Special Forces careers arc good for that kind of thing. Most of what they do is secret, or can be claimed to be.
