by Lee Child
Chapter 7
The 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.
Barr 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.
"Who's there?" Barr asked.
His voice was weak and rusty, and slow. And scared.
"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.
Reacher stepped closer. Leaned over the bed. Said nothing.
"You," Barr said.
"Me," Reacher said.
"Why?"
"You know why. "
Barr'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.
"I guess I let you down," he said.
"I guess you did. "
Reacher 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.
"I don't remember anything," Barr said.
"You sure?"
"It's all blank. "
"You clear on what I'll do to you if you're bullshitting me?"
"I can guess. "
"Triple it," Reacher said.
"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.
"Tell me about the ballgame," Reacher said.
"It was on the radio. "
"Not the TV?"
"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. "
He went quiet.
"You OK?" Reacher said.
"My head hurts real bad. I think I had an operation. "
Reacher said nothing.
"I don't like baseball on the TV," Barr said.
"I'm not here to discuss your media preferences. "
"Do you watch baseball on TV?"
"I don't have a TV," Reacher said.
"Really? You should get one. You can get them for a hundred bucks. Maybe less, for a small one. Look in the Yellow Pages. "
"I don't have a phone. Or a house. "
"Why not? You're not still in the army. "
"How would you know?"
"Nobody's still in the army. Not from back then. "
"Some people are," Reacher said, thinking about Eileen Hutton.
"Officers," Barr said. "Nobody else. "
"I was an officer," Reacher said. "You're supposed to be able to remember stuff like that. "
"But you weren't like the others. That's what I meant. "
"How was I different?"
"You worked for a living. "
"Tell me about the ballgame. "
"Why don't you have a house? Are you doing OK?"
"You worried about me now?"
"Don't like it when folks aren't doing so well. "
"I'm doing fine," Reacher said. "Believe me. You're the one with the problem. "
"Are you a cop now? Here? I never saw you around. "
Reacher shook his head. "I'm just a citizen. "
"From where?"
"From nowhere. Out in the world. "
"Why are you here?"
Reacher didn't answer.
"Oh," Barr said. "To nail me. "
"Tell me about the ballgame. "
"It was the Cubs at the Cardinals," Barr said. "Close game. Cards won, bottom ninth, walk-off. "
"Home run?"
"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. "
"You remember it pretty well. "
"I follow the Cards. I always have. "
"When was this?"
"I don't even know what day it is today. "
Reacher said nothing.
"I can't believe that I did what they say," Barr said. "Just can't believe it. "
"Plenty of evidence," Reacher said.
"For real?"
"No question. "
Barr closed his eyes.
"How many people?" he asked.
"Five. "
Barr'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.
"Why did I do it?" he said.
"Why did you do it the first time?" Reacher said.
"I was crazy then," Barr said.
Reacher said nothing.
"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. "
Reacher said nothing.
"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. "
"Why do you own all those guns?"
"Couldn't give them up. They were reminders. And they keep me straight. Too hard to stay straight without them. "
"Do you ever use them?"
"Occasionally. Not often. Now and then. "
"How?"
"At a range. "
"Where? The cops checked. "
"Not here. I go across the line to Kentucky. There's a range there, cheap. "
"You know the plaza downtown?"
"Sure. I live here. "
"Tell me how you did it. "
"I don't remember doing it. "
"So tell me how you would do it. Theoretically. Like a recon briefing. "
"What would the targets be?"
"Pedestrians. Coming out of the DMV building. "
Barr closed his eyes again. "That's who I shot?"
"Five of them," Reacher said.
Barr started crying again. Reacher moved away and pulled a chair from against a wall. He turned it around and sat down on it, backward.
"When?" Barr said.
"Friday afternoon. "
Barr stayed quiet for a long time.
"How did they catch me?" he asked.
"You tell the story. "
"Was it a traffic stop?"
"Why would it be?"
"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?"
Reacher said nothing.
"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. "
"Do you own a traffic cone?" Reacher asked.
"A what?"
"A traffic cone. "
Barr started to say no, but then he stopped.
"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. "
"So what did you do with it?"
"I put it in the garage. "
"Is it still there?"
"I think so. I'm pretty sure. "
"When was this driveway work done?"
"Start of spring, I think. Months ago. "
"You got receipts?"
Barr tried to shake his head. Winced at the pressure from the clamp.
"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. "
"You got any friends?"
"A few. "
"Who are they?"
"Just guys. One or two. "
"Any new friends?"
"I don't think so. "
"Women?"
"They don't like me. "
"Tell me about the ballgame. "
"I already did. "
"Where were you? In the car? At home?"
"Home," Barr said. "I was eating. "
"You remember that?"
Barr 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. "
"Drink? Beer, juice, coffee?"
"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. "
"How did you feel?"
"Feel?"
"Happy? Sad? Normal?"
Barr went quiet again for a moment.
"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. "
Reacher said nothing.
"I really blew that call, didn't I?" Barr said.
"Tell me about your sister," Reacher said.
"She was just here. Before the lawyer came in. "
"How do you feel about her?"
"She's all I've got. "
"How far would you go to protect her?"
"I would do anything," Barr said.
"What kind of anything?"
"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. "
Reacher said nothing.
"Why are you here?" Barr asked him.
"To bury you. "
"I deserve it. "
"You didn't fire from the highway. You were in the new parking garage. "
"On First Street?"
"North end. "
"That's nuts. Why would I fire from there?"
"You asked your first lawyer to find me. On Saturday. "
"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?"
"What was the Cards' next game?"
"I don't know. "
"Try to remember. I need to understand the circumstances here. "
"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. "
"What about before the game? Earlier that day?"
"I don't remember. "
"What would you normally be doing?"
"Not much. I don't do much. "
"What happened in the Cardinals' previous game?"
"I don't recall. "
"What's the next to last thing you remember?"
"I'm not sure. The driveway?"
"That was months ago. "
"I remember going out somewhere," Barr said.
"When?"
"Not sure. Recently. "
"Alone?"
"Maybe with people. I'm not sure. Not sure where, either. "
Reacher 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.
"What's in the IVs?" Barr asked.
Reacher squinted against the daylight and read the writing on the bags.
"Antibiotics," he said.
"Not painkillers?"
"No. "
"I guess they think I don't deserve any. "
Reacher said nothing.
"We go way back, right?" Barr said. "You and me?"
"Not really," Reacher said.
"Not like we were friends. "
"You got that right. "
"But we were connected. "
Reacher said nothing.
"Weren't we?" Barr asked.
"In a way," Reacher said.
"So would you do something for me?" Barr asked. "As a favor?"
"Like what?" Reacher said.
"Pull the IV needles out of my hand. "
"Why?"
"So I can get an infection and die. "
"No," Reacher said.
"Why not?"
"Not time yet," Reacher said.
He 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.
He 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.
Then 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.
Bellantonio 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.
"Updates?" he asked.
"Always," Bellantonio said. "We never sleep. "
"So what's new?"
"Animal DNA," Bellantonio said. "Exact match of Barr's dog's hair to the scene. "
"Where is the dog now?"
"Put to sleep. "
"That's cold. "
"That's cold?"
"The damn dog didn't do anything wrong. "
Bellantonio said nothing.
"What else?" Reacher asked.
"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. "
"He used a range down there. "
Bellantonio nodded. "We found that out, too. "
"Anything else?"
"The traffic cone came from the city's construction department. We don't know how or when. "
"Anything else?"
"I think that's about it. "
"What about the negatives?"
"The negatives?"
"You're giving me all the good news. What about the questions that didn't get answered?"
"I don't think there were any. "
"You sure about that?"
"I'm sure. "
Reacher glanced around the square of cork boards, one more time, and carefully.
"You play poker?" he asked.
"No. "
"Good decision. You're a terrible liar. "
Bellantonio said nothing.
"You should start worrying," Reacher said. "He slides, he's going to sue your ass for the dog. "
"He won't slide," Bellantonio said.
"No," Reacher said. "I don't suppose he will. "
Emerson 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.
"Did you see him?" he asked. "At the hospital?"
"He's blank from Tuesday night onward," Reacher said. "You've got a battle on your hands. "
"Terrific. "
"You should run safer jails. "
"Rodin will bring experts in. "
"His daughter already did. "
"There are legal precedents. "
"They go both ways, apparently. "
"You want to see that piece of shit back on the street?"
"Your screwup," Reacher said. "Not mine. "
"As long as you're happy. "
"Nobody's happy," Reacher said. "Not yet. "
He 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.
"Rosemary asked her brother about Kuwait City," she said. "She told me so, when she came out of his room at the hospital. "
"And?" Reacher said.
"He told her it was all true. "
"Not a fun conversation, probably. "
Helen 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. "
Reacher said nothing. Silence in the office. Then Helen showed Reacher the sheet of paper she was reading.
"Eileen Hutton is a Brigadier General," she said.
"Then she's done well," Reacher said. "She was a major when I knew her. "
"What were you?"
"A captain. "
"Wasn't that illegal?"
"Technically. For her. "
"She was in the JAG Corps. "
"Lawyers can break the law, same as anyone else. "
"She's still in the JAG Corps. "
"Obviously. They don't retrain them. "
"Based in the Pentagon. "
"That's where they keep the smart people. "
"She'll be here tomorrow. "
Reacher said nothing.
"For her deposition," Helen said.
Reacher said nothing.
"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. "
"You going to ask me to take her out for dinner?"
"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. "
"They put Barr's dog to sleep," Reacher said.
"It was old. "
"That doesn't bother you?"
"Should it?"
"The dog didn't do anything to anyone. "
Helen said nothing.
"Which hotel will Hutton use?" Reacher asked.
"I have no idea. You'll have to catch her at the airport. "
"What flight?"
"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. "
Reacher said nothing.
"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. "
"You were right," Reacher said. "We didn't have any evidence. At the time. "
She looked at him. "But?"
"We do now. "
"What?"
"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. "
"But?" Helen said again.
"But they haven't got James Barr on tape driving in to place the cone in the garage beforehand. "
"Are you sure?"
Reacher 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. "
"Which means someone else did. "
"The puppet master," Reacher said. "Or another of his puppets. Sometime after Tuesday night. Barr thinks the cone was still in his garage Tuesday. "
Helen looked at him again. "Whoever it was must be on the tapes. "
"Correct," Reacher said.
"But there'll be hundreds of cars. "
"You can narrow it down some. You're looking for a sedan. Something too low-slung to get itself down a farm track. "
"The puppet master really exists, doesn't he?"
"No other explanation for how it went down. "
"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. "
Reacher said nothing.
"Which means Barr is going to walk," Helen said. "You understand that, right? There's no alternative. The prosecution's legal problems are overwhelming. "
Reacher said nothing.
"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. "
"But?" Reacher said.
"What are you going to do? You came here to bury him and he's going to walk. "
"I don't know what I'm going to do," Reacher said. "What choices do I have?"
"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. "
"And two?"
"You could settle things with Barr yourself. "
"That's for sure. "
"But you can't do that. You'd go to prison for life if you were lucky. "
"If I got caught. "
"You would get caught. I would know you did it. "
Reacher smiled. "You'd rat me out?"
"I would have to," Helen said.
"Not if you were my law
yer. You couldn't say a word. "
"I'm not your lawyer. "
"I could hire you. "
"Rosemary Barr would know too, and she'd rat you out in a heartbeat. And Franklin. He heard you tell the story. "
Reacher nodded.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," he said again.
"How do we find this guy?"
"Like you said, why would I want to?"
"Because I don't think you're the type who settles for half a loaf. "
Reacher said nothing.
"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. "
Reacher said nothing.
"Plus, this whole situation stinks," Helen said. "There were six victims here. The five who died and Barr himself. "
"That expands the definition of victimhood a little too far for me. "
"Dr. Niebuhr expects we'll find a preexisting relationship. Probably recent. Some new friend. We could go at it that way. "
"Barr told me he doesn't have any new friends," Reacher said. "Only has one or two old friends. "
"Was he telling the truth?"
"I think he was. "
"So is Niebuhr wrong?"
"Niebuhr's guessing. He's a shrink. All they do is guess. "
"I could ask Rosemary. "
"Would she know his friends?"
"Probably. They're pretty close. "
"So get a list," Reacher said.
"Is Dr. Mason guessing, too?"
"No question. But in her case I think she's guessing right. "
"If Niebuhr's wrong about the friend, what do we do?"
"We go proactive. "
"How?"
"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. "
"Just like that?"
"People usually tell me what I want to know. "
"Why?"
"Because I ask them nicely. "
"Don't forget to ask Eileen Hutton nicely. "
"I'll see you around," Reacher said.
He 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.
The 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.
Grigor Linsky dialed his cell.
"He's back in the sports bar," he said.
"Did he see you?" the Zec asked.
"No. "
"Why is he in the sports bar again?"
"No reason. He needed a destination, that's all. He paraded around for nearly an hour, trying to make me show myself. "
Silence for a beat.
"Leave him there," the Zec said. "Come in and we'll talk. "
Alex 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.
"We need to do something about this Jack Reacher guy," Rodin said to him.
"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. "
"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. "
"That's up to your daughter. "
"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. "
"I would say we do. "
"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. "
"I don't see what I can do. "
"I want you to bring him in. "
"I can't," Emerson said. "Not without a complaint. "
Rodin went quiet.
"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. "
"This isn't the Wild West," Emerson said. "I can't run him out of town. "
"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. "
Linsky 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.
But he never spoke of it. Worse had happened to the Zec.
The 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.
He 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.
Linsky 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.
Linsky 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 fo
r Vladimir and Chenko, but for men with Linsky's age and experience nothing was entirely unimaginable anymore.
Vladimir 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.
Linsky 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.
"Sit, Grigor," the Zec said. "Nobody's upset at you. It was the boy's failure. "
Linsky 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.
"Tea?" the Zec asked in Russian.
"Please," Linsky said.
"Chenko," the Zec said. "Bring Grigor a glass of tea. "
Linsky 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.
"We've been talking," the Zec said.
"And?" Linsky said.
"We have to confront the fact that we made a mistake. Just one, but it could prove irksome. "
"The cone," Linsky said.
"Obviously Barr isn't on tape placing it," the Zec said.
"Obviously. "
"But will it be a problem?"
"Your opinion?" Linsky asked politely.
"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. "
"But?"
"But it's still a loose end. If the soldier tugs on it, something might unravel. "
"The evidence against Barr is indisputable. "
The Zec nodded. "That's true. "
"So won't that be enough for them?"
"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?"
Linsky sipped his tea. It was hot and sweet.
"All this from a videotape?" he said.
"It depends entirely on the soldier," the Zec said. "It depends on his tenacity and his imagination. "
"He was a military cop," Chenko said in English. "Did you know that?"
Linsky 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.
"That doesn't necessarily impress me," Linsky said in Russian.
"Or me," the Zec said. "But it's a factor we must weigh in the balance. "
"Silencing him now would draw attention," Linsky said. "Wouldn't it?"
"It would depend on how it was done. "
"How many ways are there?"
"We could use the redheaded girl again," the Zec said.
"She would be no use against the soldier. He's a giant, and almost certainly extensively trained in self-defense. "
"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. "
"She would know who attacked her," Vladimir said. "She would know it wasn't the soldier. "
The 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.
"Then perhaps she should be left unable to tell anyone anything," the Zec said.
"Dead?"
"We've always found that the safest way, haven't we?"
"But it's possible she has many enemies," Vladimir said. "Not just him. Maybe she's a big-time prick-teaser. "
"Then we should firm up the link. Possibly she should be found somewhere suggestive. Maybe he invited her out to renew their acquaintance. "
"In his hotel?"
"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. "
"Why would her body be outside his hotel?"
"Evidently he hit her and she staggered away and collapsed before she got very far. "
"The Metropole Palace," Linsky said. "That's where he is. "
"When?" Chenko asked.
"Whenever you like," the Zec said.
The 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.
She 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.
The 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 und
ershirts. 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.
The 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.
I'll see her again tomorrow, he thought.
He 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.
Chenko 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.
They 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.
Reacher 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.
The 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.
He 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.
He 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.
Chenko 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.
"Who's there?" she asked.
"It's me," he said.
"What do you want?"
"We need to talk. "
"I was asleep. "
"I'm sorry. "
"It's awful late. "
"I know," Chenko said. "But it's very urgent. "
There was a pause.
"Wait a minute," she said.
Chenko 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.
"What?" she said.
"You need to come with us," Chenko said.
Vladimir stepped out of the shadow.
"Why is he here?" Sandy asked.
"He's helping me tonight," Chenko said.
"What do you want?"
"You need to go out. "
"Like this? I can't. "
"I agree," Chenko said. "You need to get dressed. Like for a date. "
"A date?"
"You need to look really good. "
"But I'll have to shower. Do my hair. "
"We have time. "
"A date with who?"
"You just have to be seen. Like you were ready for a date. "
"At this time of night? The whole town is asleep. "
"Not the whole town. We're awake, for instance. "
"How much do I get?"
"Two hundred," Chenko said. "Because it's so late. "
"How long will it take?"
"Just a minute. You just have to be seen walking somewhere. "
"I don't know. "
"Two hundred for a minute's work isn't bad. "
"It isn't a minute's work. It'll take me an hour to get ready. "
"Two-fifty, then," Chenko said.
"OK," Sandy said.
Chenko 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.
Sandy 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.
Pity, Chenko thought.
"My money?" Sandy asked.
"Afterward," Chenko said. "When we bring you back. "
"Let me see it. "
"It's in the car. "
"So let's go look at it," Sandy said.
They 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.
"Now," he said.
Vladimir 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.
Chenko 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.
"You broke her neck," he said.
Vladi
mir nodded.
"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. "
"Is your hand OK?"
"It will be tender tomorrow. "
"Good work. "
"I try my best. "
They 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.
Chenko 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.
