by Lee Child
“How far away was he?”
“Twenty feet, at one point.”
“How long were you eyeballing him?”
“Twenty seconds, maybe.”
“Twenty seconds at twenty feet,” Hemingway said. “In a blackout? That’s a tough sell. I bet there have been a thousand reports tonight. People freak out in the dark.”
“He was a trained man,” Reacher said.
“Trained how?”
“The way he moved through the available cover. He’s ex-military. He’s had infantry training.”
“So have lots of guys. You ever heard of Vietnam?”
“He’s too young. This guy was of age six or seven years ago. The draft was winding down. You had to be pretty unlucky. And I don’t think he was ever in combat. I’ve seen lots of people back from Vietnam. They’re different. This guy was all theory and training. Second nature, for sure, pretty slick, but he had never lived or died by it. I can guarantee that. And I don’t think he was a Marine. They’re different too. I think he was army. And I think he’s been in Korea. It was like a fingerprint. I think he did basic, and infantry, with the urban specialization, and I think he served in Seoul. Like a particular combination. That’s how he looked. I see it all the time. You ever been there? Seoul teaches you to move a certain way. But he’s been out at least two years, because of the hair, and he’s had time to get a bit heavy. I think he volunteered at eighteen or nineteen, and I think he served a three-year hitch. That was my impression, anyway.”
“That’s one hell of a detailed impression.”
“You could offer it as a filter. They could see if any persons of interest match up.”
“It was twenty seconds in the pitch dark.”
“What else have they got?”
“Maybe I could.”
“Suppose it worked? Suppose they get the guy? Would that be good for you?”
“Of course it would.”
“So what’s the downside?”
“Sounding desperate and pathetic.”
“Your call.”
“You should try it,” Chrissie said. “Someone needs to catch the guy.”
Hemingway said nothing.
* * *
They waited, all crammed together in the doorway opposite Croselli’s place, with absolutely nothing happening. They heard sirens, and snatches of conversation from people passing by on Bleecker. Like headline news. It was now only ninety degrees. The lights had gone out at Shea in the bottom of the sixth, with the Mets trailing the Cubs by two to one. Subway riders had spent scary hours trapped underground, but were slowly making their way back to the surface. Cars were using chains and ropes to tear the shutters off stores. Even Brooks Brothers on Madison had been looted. Crown Heights and Bushwick were on fire. Cops had been hurt and arrests had been made.
Then the last of the passersby moved on and Carmine went quiet again and the clock in Reacher’s head ticked around toward midnight. He said to Chrissie, “I’ll walk you back to your car. Your friends will be waiting.”
She said, “Are you staying here?”
“Might as well. I already missed my bus.”
“Do you think the roads are open?”
“Wide open. They want people to leave.”
“Why?”
“Fewer mouths to feed here.”
“Makes sense,” Chrissie said. They walked together to the corner, and around it, where the Chevette waited undisturbed. The two guys were still laid out in the roadway, under the box. Like a cartoon accident. They were still breathing.
Reacher said, “Want me to ride with you?”
“No,” Chrissie said. “We go back alone. That’s part of the deal.”
“You know how to go?”
“Up on Sixth and across on 4th. And then it’s right there.”
“Roger that.”
“Take care, OK?”
“I will,” Reacher said. “You too. I’ll never forget you.”
“You will.”
“Check back next year, see if I have.”
“OK. Let’s see who remembers. Same night, same place. Deal?”
“I’ll be there,” Reacher said.
She got into the car, and she eased away from the tangle of limbs behind her, and she made the left on Sixth, and she waved through her open window. And then she was gone.
* * *
Hemingway said, “I’m going to put it in the system. Your impression, I mean. That’s the smart play here. They’ll ignore it of course, but it will be in the record. I can say told you so, afterward. If you’re right. That’s always worth a point or two. Sometimes more. Being right afterward can be a wonderful thing.”
“It’s a filter,” Reacher said. “That’s all. It’s about efficiency.”
“But I still need Croselli.”
“The Son of Sam wouldn’t get you out of jail?”
“I need Croselli.”
“Why?”
“Because he burns me up.”
“You ever read a book called Moby-Dick?”
“OK, I get it. And I admit it. Croselli is my great white whale. I’m obsessed. But what can I do about it? What could anyone, with a whale pressing on her head?”
“Is that how you feel? Like you have a whale pressing on your head?”
“That’s exactly how I feel.”
“Then let’s trade,” Reacher said.
“What for what?”
“I need a ride out of town.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible. I’m sure my brother is worrying about me. Which I’m sure is hard on the old guy. I need to put him out of his misery.”
“I’m not a taxi dispatcher.”
“You have a car.”
“I’m not a chauffeur, either.”
“You could lend it to me.”
“How would I get it back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you even have a license?”
“Not exactly.”
“No deal,” she said.
“OK,” Reacher said.
“What were you going to do for me?”
“Suppose an unknown suspect broke into Croselli’s place, and you got a look inside. Then the unknown suspect fled, but you were too busy securing the scene to chase him.”
“I’ve been waiting two hours for that to happen. But it hasn’t.”
“I could do it.”
“You’re sixteen years old.”
“How is that relevant?”
“Entrapment is bad enough. Entrapment with minors is probably worse.”
“Who would ever know, apart from you and me?”
“I have no way of getting you a ride out of town.”
Reacher paused a beat, and said, “Maybe we should refine the plan.”
“What plan?” Hemingway said. “We don’t have a plan.”
“Probably better if it’s not you who makes the discovery. It could look like a personal vendetta. It could give Croselli’s lawyers something to work with. Probably better if it’s not even the FBI at all. Better if it’s the NYPD. Don’t you think? An independent agency, with no ax to grind. If they discover a dope dealer and his stash in their city, then it’s out there. It can’t be denied. It is what it is. Your people will have to hush up their deal, and they’ll have to admit you were right all along, and you can turn your review procedure into a medal ceremony.”
“The NYPD is busy tonight.”
“They have a narcotics division, surely. Make the call ahead of time. Get a sense of how long they’re going to be, and we’ll try to time it exactly right. I’ll bust in, you hang back and keep an eye on things for a minute until the cops show up, and then we’ll both slip away, and you can drive me north. Meanwhile the NYPD will be building your case for you, and by the time you’re back in town your bosses will be rolling out the red carpet.”
“How far north do you want to go?”
“West Point. It’s up the river a ways.”
“I kn
ow where it is.”
“So do we have a deal?”
Hemingway didn’t answer.
* * *
Hemingway finally agreed about thirty minutes later, close to one o’clock in the morning. But the plan went wrong immediately. First they couldn’t find a working phone. They searched up and down Carmine, and they tried the corner of Seventh Avenue, and the corner of Bleecker, and Sixth Avenue, and every pay phone they found was silent. They didn’t know if it was the result of the blackout, or just the general abject state of the city. Reacher figured the phone company had its own electricity, in its own wires, so he was all in favor of carrying on the search, but Hemingway was reluctant to foray further, in case she missed something over at Croselli’s place. So she walked back to the doorway on Carmine and Reacher went on alone, across Sixth, and on the corner between Minetta Street and Minetta Lane he found a phone with a dial tone.
It was too dark to see the numbers, so he dialed by feel, zero for the operator, and he waited a long time before she answered. He asked for the NYPD’s Sixth Precinct, and waited again, even longer, before the call was picked up and a voice barked, “Yes?”
Reacher said, “I want to report illegal narcotics in the West Village.”
The voice said, “What?”
“There’s a storeroom full of drugs on Carmine just been bust open.”
“Any dead bodies?”
“No.”
“Anyone currently in the act of getting killed?”
“No.”
“Fire?”
“No.”
The voice said, “Then stop wasting my time,” and the phone went dead. Reacher hung up and hustled back, sweating, ninety degrees at one in the morning, and he relayed the news to Hemingway, who nodded in the dark and said, “We should have seen that coming. I guess they’re all hands on deck right now.”
“We might have to use your own people.”
“Forget it. They wouldn’t take my call.”
Reacher said, “Still got your little sister’s cassette recorder?”
“It’s my cassette recorder.”
“Still got it?”
“Why?”
“Maybe I can get him to boast on the tape.”
“You?”
“Same principle. You can’t let this look like a vendetta.”
“I can’t let you. You and him, face to face? I have a conscience.”
“What’s he going to do to me?”
“Beat you to death.”
“He’s a made man,” Reacher said. “He has soldiers. Which means he tells other people to do the heavy lifting. Which means he’s out of practice. He’s all hat and no cattle. He’s got nothing. We already saw that on Waverly. Any twelve-year-old in the Philippines could eat his lunch.”
“Is this a Marine Corps thing?”
“I’m not a Marine.”
“How would you get in?”
“I assume the church behind him is locked.”
“Tonight for sure. If not every night.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“How would the military do it?”
“Marines or army?”
“Army.”
“They’d call in artillery support. Or air-to-ground.”
“Marines?”
“They’d start a fire, probably. That usually brings them out real fast.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I’m not a Marine,” Reacher said again. He looked across the street. The second-story windows were dark, obviously. Which meant Croselli could be right there, watching. But without seeing much. A man in a dark room watching a lit street had an advantage. A man in a dark room watching a dark street might as well have saved himself the eyestrain.
Reacher crossed the dark street, to the double doors. He put his fingertips on them. They felt like sandpaper. Fifty-year-old paint, plus fifty years of smoke and grime and dust. He tapped, first with his fingernails, then gently with his knuckles. The wood felt old and thick and solid, like it had been shipped a hundred years before, from some ancient forest out west. He slid his palms across the surface, until he found the judas gate. Same paint, same grime, same wood. He felt for the hinges, and didn’t find any. He felt for the lock, and rubbed it with his thumb. It seemed to be a small round Yale, worn brass, probably as old as the paint.
He headed back to Hemingway. He said, “The doors are probably two or three inches thick, and the judas gate is all of a piece. All quality lumber, probably hard as a rock by now.”
“Then maybe the army way is the only way.”
“Maybe not. The judas gate opens inward. The lock is an old Yale, put in maybe fifty years ago. I’m guessing they didn’t chase out a void in the door. Not in wood that hard. Not back then. People weren’t so uptight about security. I bet the lock is surface-mounted on the back. Like an old house. The tongue is in a little surface-mounted box. Two screws, is all.”
“There will be another door. Out of the yard, into the building. Might have a newer lock.”
“Then I’ll knock and rely on charm.”
“I can’t let you do this.”
“It’s the least I can do. I screwed you up before. You might have gotten something. You were going to take that slap and keep him talking.”
“He had already found the wire.”
“But he’s arrogant. He’s got an ego. He might have carried on regardless, just to taunt you.”
“That’s what I was hoping.”
“Then let me put it right.”
* * *
Reacher turned around and lifted his shirt and bared his back to Hemingway. He felt hot fingers scrabbling at his waistband, gapping it out, fitting the plastic box behind the elastic on his shorts. Then he felt the scrape of a wire, and her hand burrowed up his back, under his shirt, to his shoulder blade, and then on over the top, a curious vertical embrace, her breath on his neck, and then she turned him around again to face her, and her other hand went up the front of his shirt, to find the microphone, to pass it from hand to hand, and to pull it down into place. She stopped with it trapped against his chest, and she kept her hand there, flat, nothing between her palm and his skin except the small pebble of technology.
She said, “I put it in my bra. But you don’t have one.”
“Imagine that,” Reacher said.
“There’s nothing to keep it in place.”
Reacher felt an immediate film of sweat between his chest and her hand. He said, “Got a Band-Aid in your purse?”
“You’re a smart kid,” she said, and she went into a one-hand-two-elbows contortion to root through her bag, and as she craned her neck to look downward into it her forehead touched his lips, just briefly, like a kiss. Her hair was limp, but it smelled like strawberries.
She jerked her bag back up on her shoulder and held up something that crackled slightly. A Band-Aid, he assumed, still in its hygienic wrapper. He took it from her and peeled it open in the space between their faces. Then in turn she took it back from him one-handed and used it to tape the microphone in the trench between his chest muscles. She smoothed the adhesive, once, twice, and then she took her hands out from under his shirt and pulled it down into place.
She put her palm on his chest, like Croselli had put his on hers, pressing hard on the damp cotton, and she said, “He’ll find it.”
“Don’t worry,” Reacher said. “If he puts his hands on me, I’ll beat him to death.”
Hemingway said nothing.
Reacher said, “That’s a Marine Corps thing.”
* * *
The darkness didn’t help. It didn’t help at all. Reacher lined up on the opposite curb, like a sprinter at the start of a race, but he couldn’t exactly see where he was heading. Adjustments were going to be necessary as he ran. He took off, slow and clumsy, partly because of the dark, partly because he was a terrible runner, with long lumbering strides, and three paces out he saw the doors, and two paces out he saw the judas gate, and with one pace
to go he saw its lock, and he launched his leading foot in a scything kick, slightly across his body, and he smashed his heel as close to the small Yale circle as he could get, with all his two hundred and twenty pounds behind it, multiplied significantly by the final acceleration of his foot, and by the fact that his whole bulk was moving briskly, if not exactly fast.
But it was enough. The judas gate exploded inward, with what felt like no resistance at all, and Reacher hurtled through the resulting blank rectangle into a space so dark he could make out nothing at all. There was the feel of cobblestones under his feet, and the sour smell of garbage, and sheer dark walls rising on his left and his right and ahead.
He felt his way along the right-hand wall to the back corner of the yard, where he found a door. Ridged glass above, a panel below, a smooth steel handle, and a lock that felt newer. The glass was probably tempered and reinforced with wire. The lock was probably chased into the door and the jamb. A whole different proposition.
He waited, to see if Croselli would come down and open it himself. Which he might. He must have heard the crash of the judas gate. But he didn’t come down. Reacher waited three minutes, breathing hard, stretching his eyes wide open, willing them to see something. But they didn’t. He stepped up to the door again and traced its shape with his hands. The panel below the glass would be the weak spot. Plywood, probably, maybe three-eighths thick, painted, retained in the frame by quarter-round moldings. Reacher was wearing shoes he had bought in the London airport two deployments ago, stout British things with welts and toecaps as hard as steel. They had busted heads and kneecaps already that night. Plywood wasn’t going to be a major problem.
He stepped back and poked forward with his toe to fix his target in his mind. Then he kicked out, bang, bang, concentrating on the corners of the panel, viciously and noisily, until the wood splintered and the moldings came loose.
Then he stopped and listened.
No sound from inside the building.
Which was a bitch. Reacher would have preferred to meet Croselli face to face on the ground floor. He didn’t relish heading up a flight of stairs toward an alert opponent at the top.
He waited some more.
No sound.
He squatted down with his back against the doorframe and punched out the panel with his elbow, until it folded inward, like a miniature door itself, hinged on a few surviving nails. Then he twisted around and put his arm and his shoulder through the hole and reached up and scrabbled for the knob. Which he found easily enough. He had arms like a gorilla. Every childhood photograph of him featured six inches of bare wrist, at the end of every sleeve.
