“Will they call again?” Lane asked. “Will he?”
“Four hours from now that same argument will start all over again.”
“And?”
“What would you do?”
Lane didn’t answer directly. “If there’s only one guy, how can he argue?”
“With himself,” Reacher said. “And that’s the toughest kind of argument to have.”
Lane paced. But his hands stopped moving. It was like he had been hit with a new consideration. Reacher had been expecting it. Here it comes, he thought.
“Maybe you’re right,” Lane said. “Maybe it isn’t three guys.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Maybe it’s four guys,” Lane said. “And maybe you’re the fourth guy. Maybe that’s why you were in that coffee shop the first night. You were watching your buddy’s back. Making sure he got away OK.”
Reacher said nothing.
“It was you who elected to watch the front door this morning,” Lane said. “Because you knew nothing would happen there. You should have watched the car. You should have been on Sixth Avenue, not Spring Street. And you knew they were going to ask for five million more. You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
Silence in the room.
“Two questions,” Reacher said. “Why would I have gone back to the coffee shop the second night? Nothing was happening the second night. And if I was a bad guy, why would I have told Gregory I had seen anything at all?”
“Because you wanted to worm your way inside where you could steer us wrong. You knew I would send someone out to look for witnesses. That was obvious. And you were right there, like a spider waiting for a fly.”
Lane glanced around the room. Reacher followed his gaze. A quiet desperate atmosphere, subdued menace, six Special Forces veterans, all looking back at him, all as hard as nails, all full of hostility toward the stranger and all full of any fighting soldier’s suspicion of an MP. He checked their faces, one through six. Then he looked down at Kate Lane’s photograph.
“Pity,” he said. “Your wife is a beautiful woman, Mr. Lane. And your daughter is a lovely kid. And if you want to get them back, then I’m all you’ve got. Because like I said, these guys here can start a war, but they’re not investigators. They can’t find what you’re looking for. I know guys like these. Guys like these, they couldn’t find their own assholes if I gave them a mirror on a stick.”
Nobody spoke.
“You know where I live?” Reacher asked.
“I could find out,” Lane said.
“You couldn’t,” Reacher said. “Because I don’t really live anywhere. I move around. Here, there, and everywhere. So if I choose to walk out of here today, you’ll never see me again, the whole rest of your life. You can count on that.”
Lane didn’t answer.
“And therefore Kate,” Reacher said. “You’ll never see her again, either. You can count on that, too.”
“You wouldn’t get out of here alive,” Lane said. “Not unless I chose to let you.”
Reacher shook his head. “You won’t use firearms in here. Not inside the Dakota. I’m sure that would break the terms of your co-op lease. And I’m not worried about hand-to-hand combat. Not against little guys like these. You remember how it was back in the service, don’t you? Your guys stepped out of line, who did you call? The 110th Special Unit, that’s who. Hard men need harder cops. I was one of those cops. And I’m willing to be one again. Against all of you at once, if you like.”
Nobody spoke.
“I’m not here to steer you wrong,” Reacher said. “If I wanted to steer you wrong, I’d have given you descriptions of two fantasy guys this morning. Short, tall, fat, thin, whatever. Eskimos in fur hats. Africans in full tribal dress. I’d have had you chasing shadows all over the place. But I didn’t. I came back here and told you I’m sorry that actually I’m not steering you anyplace yet. Because I am sorry about that. Really. I’m sorry about the whole damn thing.”
Nobody spoke.
“But you need to hang with it,” Reacher said. “We all do. Things like this are never easy.”
The room stayed quiet. Then Lane exhaled. He nodded.
“I apologize,” he said. “Most sincerely. Please forgive me. It’s the stress.”
Reacher said, “No offense taken.”
Lane said, “One million dollars to find my wife.”
“For me?” Reacher said.
“As a fee.”
“That’s some raise. It was twenty-five grand a few hours ago.”
“The situation is more serious now than it was a few hours ago.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Will you accept?” Lane asked.
“We’ll talk about a fee afterward,” Reacher said. “If I succeed.”
“If?”
“I’m way behind the curve here. Success depends on how much longer we can keep this thing going.”
“Will they call back again?”
“Yes, I think they will.”
“Why did you mention Africans?”
“When?”
“Just now. You said Africans in full tribal dress. As an example of a fantasy description.”
“It was an example. Like you said.”
“What do you know about Africa?”
“It’s a large continent south of Europe. I’ve never been there.”
“What do we do next?”
“We think,” Reacher said.
* * *
Lane went to his office and five men went out for breakfast. Reacher stayed in the living room. Gregory stayed in there with him. They sat across from each other on a pair of low sofas. Between the sofas was a coffee table. The coffee table was topped with French polished mahogany. The sofas were covered with flowery chintz. There were velvet throw pillows. The whole room seemed ludicrously overdecorated and overstyled and overcivilized, given the issues at hand. And it was totally dominated by the portrait of Kate Lane. Her eyes were everywhere.
“Can you get her back?” Gregory asked.
“I don’t know,” Reacher said. “Usually this kind of a thing doesn’t end happily. Kidnapping is a brutal business. Usually it’s the exact same thing as homicide, just delayed a little.”
“That’s pretty defeatist.”
“No, it’s realistic.”
“Any chance at all?”
“Maybe some, if we’re only halfway through. Probably none, if we’re near the end. I don’t have any traction yet. And any kidnap, the endgame is always the hardest part.”
“You think they were really in the building when I dropped the keys?”
“It’s possible. And it would make sense. Why wait outside when they could wait inside?”
“OK,” Gregory said. “So how about this: That’s their base. That’s where they are. Not upstate.”
“Where are the cars?”
“In parking garages all around the city.”
“Why the five-hour delays?”
“To create a false impression.”
“It would be one hell of a double-bluff,” Reacher said. “They led us right there. Gave us the exact address.”
“But it’s conceivable.”
Reacher shrugged. “Not very. But stranger things have happened, I guess. So go call those numbers. Find out what you can. If possible, aim to have someone meet us with a key. But not right there. On the corner of Thompson. Out of sight. Just in case.”
“When?”
“Now. We need to be back here before the next ransom demand.”
* * *
Reacher left Gregory working with his cell phone on the sofa and wandered back through the kitchen to Lane’s office. Lane was at his desk, but he wasn’t doing anything productive. Just swinging his chair back and forth through a tiny arc and staring at the twin photographs in front of him. His two wives. One lost. Maybe both lost.
“Did the FBI find the guys?” Reacher asked. “The first time, with Anne?”
Lane shook hi
s head.
“But you knew who they were.”
“Not at the time,” Lane said.
“But you found out later.”
“Did I?”
“Tell me how.”
“It became a threshold question,” Lane said. “Who would do such a thing? At first I couldn’t imagine anyone doing it. But clearly someone had, so I revised the threshold of possibilities downward. But then everyone in the world seemed to be a possibility. It was beyond my understanding.”
“You surprise me. You move in a world where hostage-taking and abduction aren’t exactly unknown.”
“Do I?”
“Foreign conflicts,” Reacher said. “Irregular forces.”
“But this was domestic,” Lane said. “This was right here in New York City. And it was my wife, not me or one of my men.”
“But you did find the guys.”
“Did I?”
Reacher nodded. “You’re not asking me if I think it could be the same people all over again. You’re not speculating. It’s like you know for sure it isn’t.”
Lane said nothing.
“How did you find them?” Reacher asked.
“Someone who knew someone heard some talk. Arms dealers, up and down their network.”
“And?”
“There was a story about four guys who had heard about a deal I had done and concluded that I had money.”
“What happened to the four guys?”
“What would you have done?”
“I would have made sure they couldn’t do it again.”
Lane nodded. “Let’s just say I’m completely confident that this isn’t the same people doing it again.”
“Have you heard any new talk?” Reacher asked.
“Not a word.”
“A rival in this business?”
“I don’t have rivals in this business. I have inferiors and junior partners. And even if I did have rivals, they wouldn’t do something like this. It would be suicide. They would know that sooner or later our paths would cross. Would you risk antagonizing a bunch of armed men you’re likely to stumble across under the radar somewhere in the back of beyond?”
Reacher said nothing.
“Will they call again?” Lane asked.
“I think they will.”
“What will they ask for?”
“Ten,” Reacher said. “That’s the next step. One, five, ten, twenty.”
Lane sighed, distracted.
“That’s two bags,” he said. “Can’t get ten million dollars in one bag.”
He showed no other outward reaction. Reacher thought: One plus five already gone, plus one promised to me, plus ten more. That’s seventeen million dollars. This guy is right now looking at a running total of seventeen million dollars, and he hasn’t even blinked yet.
“When will they call?” Lane asked.
“Drive time plus argument time,” Reacher said. “Late afternoon, early evening. Not before.”
Lane kept on swinging his chair through its tiny arc. He lapsed into silence. Then there was a quiet knock at the door and Gregory stuck his head in the room.
“I got what we need,” he said, to Reacher, not to Lane. “The building on Spring Street? The owner is a bankrupt developer. One of his lawyer’s people is meeting us there in an hour. I said we were interested in buying the place.”
“Good work,” Reacher said.
“So maybe you should revise what you said about a mirror on a stick.”
“Maybe I should. Maybe I will one day.”
“So let’s go.”
* * *
They were met at the 72nd Street curb by another new BMW 7-series sedan. This one was black. This time the driver stayed behind the wheel and Gregory and Reacher climbed in the back. The woman who was watching the building saw them go, and she noted the time.
CHAPTER 10
THE GUY FROM the bankrupt developer’s lawyer’s office was a reedy paralegal of about thirty. His suit pockets were bagged out from all the keys he carried. Clearly his firm specialized in distressed real estate. Gregory gave him an OSC business card and introduced Reacher as a contractor whose opinion he valued.
“Is the building habitable?” Gregory asked. “I mean, as of right now?”
“You worried about squatters being in there?” the reedy guy asked back.
“Or tenants,” Gregory said. “Or anybody.”
“There’s nobody in there,” the guy said. “I can assure you of that fact. No water, no power, no gas, capped sewer. Also, if I’m thinking of the right building, there’s another feature that makes it highly unlikely.”
He juggled his keys and unlocked the Thompson Street alley gate. The three men walked east together, behind the chocolate shop, to the target building’s red rear door.
“Wait,” Gregory said. Then he turned to Reacher and whispered, “If they’re in there, we need to think about how we do this. We could get them both killed right here.”
“It’s unlikely they’re in there,” Reacher said.
“Plan for the worst,” Gregory said.
Reacher nodded. Stepped back and looked up and checked the windows. They were black with filth and dusty black drapes were drawn tight behind them. Street noise was loud, even in the alley. Therefore, their approach thus far was still undetected.
“Decision?” Gregory asked.
Reacher looked around, pensive. Stepped up next to the lawyer’s guy.
“What makes you so sure there’s nobody in there?” he asked.
“I’ll show you,” the guy said. He shoved the key in the lock and pushed open the door. Then he raised his arm to stop Gregory and Reacher from crowding in too closely behind him. Because the feature that made current habitation of the building unlikely was that it had no floors.
The back door was hanging open over a yawning ten-foot pit. At the bottom of the pit was the original basement floor. It was knee-deep in trash. Above it was nothing at all. Just fifty feet of dark void, all the way up to the underside of the roof slab. The building was like a giant empty shoe box set on its end. Stumps of floor joists were faintly visible in the gloom. They had been cut off flush with the walls. The remains of individual rooms were still clearly delineated by patches of different wallpapers and vertical scars where interior partitions had been ripped out. Bizarrely, all the windows still had their drapes.
“See?” the lawyer’s guy said. “Not exactly habitable, is it?”
There was a ladder set next to the rear door. It was a tall old wooden thing. A nimble person could grasp the door frame and swing sideways and get on it and climb down into the basement trash. Then that person could pick his way forward to the front of the building and root through the garbage with a flashlight and collect anything that had fallen the thirteen feet from the letter slot above.
Or, a nimble person could be already waiting down there and could catch whatever came through the slot like a pop-up in the infield.
“Was that ladder always there?” Reacher asked.
“I don’t recall,” the guy said.
“Who else has keys to this place?” Reacher asked.
“Everyone and his uncle, probably,” the guy said. “This place has been vacant nearly twenty years. The last owner alone tried half a dozen different separate schemes. That’s half a dozen architects and contractors and God knows who else. Before that, who knows what went on? The first thing you’ll need to do is change the locks.”
“We don’t want it,” Gregory said. “We were looking for something ready to move into. You know, maybe a little paint. But this is off the charts.”
“We could be flexible on price,” the guy said.
“A dollar,” Gregory said. “That’s all I’d pay for a dump like this.”
“You’re wasting my time,” the guy said.
He leaned in over the yawning void and pulled the door closed. Then he relocked it and walked back up the alley without another word. Reacher and Gregory followed him out to Thomp
son Street. The guy relocked the gate and walked away south. Reacher and Gregory stayed where they were, on the sidewalk.
“Not their base, then,” Gregory said, clipped and British.
“Mirror on a stick,” Reacher said.
“Just a dead drop for the car keys. They must be up and down that ladder like trained monkeys.”
“I guess they must.”
“So next time we should watch the alley.”
“I guess we should.”
“If there is a next time.”
“There will be,” Reacher said.
“But they’ve already had six million dollars. Surely there’s going to come a point where they decide they’ve got enough.”
Reacher recalled the feel of the mugger’s hand in his pocket.
“Look south,” he said. “That’s Wall Street down there. Or take a stroll on Greene Street and look in the store windows. There’s no such thing as enough.”
“There would be for me.”
“For me, too,” Reacher said.
“That’s my point. They could be just like us.”
“Not exactly like us. I never abducted anyone. Did you?”
Gregory didn’t answer that. Thirty-six minutes later the two men were back in the Dakota, and the woman who was watching the building had made another entry in her log.
CHAPTER 11
REACHER HAD A late breakfast delivered from a gourmet deli on Edward Lane’s tab and he ate it alone in the kitchen. Then he lay down on a sofa and thought until he was too tired to think anymore. Then he closed his eyes and dozed, and waited for the phone to ring.
* * *
Kate and Jade were sleeping, too. It was nature’s way. They had been unable to sleep at night, so exhaustion had overtaken them midway through the day. They were on their narrow beds, close together, deep in slumber. The lone man opened their door quietly and saw them. Paused a moment, just looking. Then he backed out of the room and left them alone. No hurry, he thought. In a way he was enjoying this particular phase of the operation. He was addicted to risk. He always had been. No point in denying it. It made him who he was.
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