by Lee Child
‘It’s a suburban house,’ Delfuenso said, like she could hear him thinking. ‘South of the city, and a little east.’
‘How far out of town?’
‘Maybe twelve miles.’
An hour fifty-three, he thought, door to door.
He said, ‘What kind of neighbourhood?’
‘Decent. And crowded.’
‘That’s awkward.’
‘Potentially.’
‘But well chosen, I suppose.’
Delfuenso nodded at the wheel. ‘Wadiah is smarter than most of what we see.’
The Paris of the Plains got a mile closer every forty seconds, and Sorenson asked, ‘What do you know about Peter King?’
Delfuenso said, ‘Where did you hear that name?’
‘Reacher heard Alan King say it.’
Delfuenso glanced at Reacher in the mirror and nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I remember that. And then he made the slip about a million and a half people living where he lived. Right after claiming he was based in Nebraska. Right after claiming he’d been driving three hours despite a full tank and bottles of cold water.’
Sorenson said, ‘We know Peter King moved from Denver to Kansas City, seven months ago.’
‘You know more than you should.’
‘Was his move a coincidence?’
‘There are no coincidences. Not in law enforcement. You know that.’
‘Is he a cop or an agent?’
‘Why would he be?’
‘I’m just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s all. He served his country.’
‘Then sadly no, Peter King is not a cop or an agent.’
‘Is he connected to Wadiah?’
‘We think so.’
‘How closely connected?’
‘We think he might be their leader.’
‘I see.’
‘Because in terms of their organizational chart there’s only a couple of roles we can’t put a name to, and there’s only a couple of names we can’t assign a role to. One of those roles is leader, and one of those names is Peter King. So to connect the two seems like a fairly logical assumption.’
‘With a brother he doesn’t talk to in the ranks?’
‘He doesn’t talk to anyone in the ranks. Not if he’s the leader. That’s not how these cells operate. The leader talks to his trusted lieutenants only, two or three of them at the most. Then there’s a chain of command, rigorously compartmentalized, for security.’
‘Even so, it’s still weird.’
Delfuenso nodded. ‘McQueen got to know Alan King pretty well. There’s some kind of strange sibling dynamic going on there. Alan is the kid brother. Or was, I should say now. Very needy guy. Always craving his big brother’s approval. Obsessed by the guy. Which is why he mentioned him last night, I guess. There was no other reason to. Apparently there was some unspoken issue, stretching back more than twenty years. Peter was holding Alan accountable for something. Some kind of lapse or betrayal or disgrace. In return Alan was always trying to prove himself. And McQueen got the impression Peter wanted Alan to prove himself. Like a redemption thing. Tough love, but love none the less. You know how it is with family. Blood is thicker than water, and all that kind of shit. From what we know about him, Peter is going to be mighty pissed that Alan is dead.’
‘Which must be why McQueen is in trouble. Tonight of all nights.’
Delfuenso nodded again.
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope he’s managing to convince him it was Reacher who did it, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.’
The plain west-east Interstate that had run so serenely all the way through the state of Kansas splintered into a whole mess of beltways and expressways about ten miles short of the line. Delfuenso turned south, still on the Kansas side, and then she headed east again on a federal road with a new number, and they entered Missouri in the overtaking lane at ninety miles an hour, following a sign to a place called Lees Summit. But they turned north well before they got there, towards a new place called Raytown, but they never got there, either. They turned off before it slid into view, heading now north and west, into multiple acres of suburban sprawl backed by what Reacher took to be a large park. By day it might have been pretty. By night it was just a big black hole. By that point Delfuenso was driving slow and cautious, nosing the silent car through uncertain turns, pausing hesitantly, moving briskly through patches of light, slowing again in patches of darkness, as if unsure of her destination, or scared of it.
Reacher asked her, ‘Have you been here before?’
She said, ‘None of us has, except McQueen. Too soon for that. This phase of an operation is all about standing back and seeing what develops. But I’m copied on the file. I know the address. I’ve seen the house on Google Maps. So I know the general situation.’
The general situation was going to be American suburbia, plain and simple. That was clear. There were municipal sidewalks left and right, mossy concrete, heaved up here and there by tree roots, studded less often by city fireplugs. And Reacher could see houses, regularly spaced in lots, most of them modest, some of them small, a few of them large, all of them dark and fast asleep. Most of them had white siding. Some were painted a colour. Most of them were one-storey, much wider than they were high. Some had eyebrow windows at the eaves, for upstairs bonus rooms. All had mailboxes and foundation plantings, and lawns, and driveways. Most had cars parked, at least one or two, or sometimes three. Some had children’s bikes outside, dumped and dewy, and soccer goals, or hockey goals, or basketball hoops. Some had flagpoles, with Old Glories hanging limp and grey in the still night air.
‘Not what I expected,’ Reacher said.
‘I told you,’ Delfuenso said. ‘A decent, crowded neighbourhood.’
‘Syrians don’t stand out here?’
‘The pale ones say they’re Italians. The dark ones have been telling people they’re Indians. From the subcontinent. You know, Delhi and Mumbai and places like that. Most people can’t tell the difference. They say they work tech jobs in the city.’ Then she slowed, and came to a stop on the kerb. She said, ‘OK, I think we’re about two blocks away. How do you want to do this?’
Reacher had stormed houses before. More than once, less than twenty times, probably. But usually with a full company of MPs, divided into squads, some of them in back, some of them out front, some of them held in reserve in armoured trucks with heavy firepower, all of them equipped with working radios. And all of them usually in places cordoned off and cleared of non-combatants. And usually with a bunch of medics standing by. He felt under-equipped, and vulnerable.
He said, ‘We could set fire to the place. That usually works pretty good. They all come running out sooner or later. Except that McQueen could be tied up or locked in or otherwise incapacitated. So we’d better put one of us in the cellar door, if there is one, and one of us through the front, and one of us through the back. How are your marksmanship skills?’
‘Pretty good,’ Delfuenso said.
‘Not bad,’ Sorenson said.
‘OK, you’ll have your guns up and out in front of you. Shoot anything that moves. Except if it’s me or McQueen. Use head shots for certainty. Aim at the centre of the face. Save rounds. No double taps. We’ll have the advantage for about four seconds. We can’t let it turn into a siege.’
Delfuenso said, ‘You don’t want to try a decoy approach? I could go to the door and pretend to be lost or something.’
‘No,’ Reacher said. ‘Because then after they shoot you in the head Sorenson and I will have to do all the work on our own.’
‘Have you done this kind of thing before?’
‘Haven’t you?’
‘No, this is strictly a SWAT function.’
‘It’s usually about fifty-fifty,’ Reacher said. ‘In terms of a happy ending, I mean. That’s been my experience.’
‘Maybe we should wait for Quantico.’
‘Let’s at least go take
a look.’
They slid out of Bale’s car, stealthy and quiet, guns in their hands. They were the only things moving. Dark blue clothing, nearly invisible in the moonlight. They went single file on the sidewalk, instinctively six or eight feet from each other, the whole length of the first block, and across the street without pausing, at that kind of time in that kind of place more likely to come down with a rare disease than get run over by moving traffic. They walked the length of the second block, but slowed towards its end, and bunched up a little, as if discussion might be necessary. Delfuenso had said she knew the house from above, in two dimensions on the computer screen, and she had said she hoped she would know it in three dimensions on the ground. It was all going to depend on what the block looked like from the side. From a human’s point of view, not a satellite camera’s.
They stopped on the corner and Delfuenso peered up the street to their right. It rose on a slight slope, and then it dropped away again. The first few houses were visible. The rest weren’t.
‘This is it,’ Delfuenso said.
‘Which house?’
‘The second house over the hill on the left.’
‘You sure? We can’t see it yet.’
‘The satellite pictures,’ she said. ‘I looked at the neighbours. Up and down the street. And the corners. I know this is the right street. No fire hydrant. Every other corner has had one. This one doesn’t. W for without a fire hydrant, W for Wadiah. That’s how I planned to remember it.’
Reacher glanced around. No fire hydrant.
‘Good work,’ he said.
Sorenson volunteered to go in through the cellar door. If there was one. If not, she would find a side window and break in from there. Reacher was OK with that. The third angle would help, but it wouldn’t be decisive. Clearly the most dangerous spot would be the front, and clearly the most effective spot would be the back. Only two real choices. Risk and reward.
He said, ‘I’ll be the back door man.’
Delfuenso said, ‘Then I’ll take the front.’
‘But don’t tell them you’re lost. Shoot them in the face instead. Before they even say hello.’
‘We should give Sorenson a head start. If there is a cellar door, I mean. That’s a slower way in.’
‘We will,’ Reacher said. ‘When we get there.’
And then they moved off together, walking fast, up the street to their right.
SIXTY-THREE
THEY STAYED OFF the sidewalk and walked in the road. No point in wasting what little tree cover there was. Reacher stopped them when he figured they were about seven feet below the crest of the rise. From there he and Sorenson would go yard to yard behind the houses, and Delfuenso would pause a long moment and then walk on alone. She would give them that head start because of their sideways detour and their tougher going. Fences, hedges, dogs. Maybe even barbed wire. This was Missouri, after all. The Southern Wire Company of St Louis had once been the world’s biggest manufacturer of bootleg cattle wire. Three cents a pound. Enough to go round.
But Delfuenso’s approach was always going to be the most dangerous. Lookouts were always posted out front. Not always posted out back. If any approach was going to be spotted, it was going to be hers. Then it would depend on their paranoia level. Which might be high, by that point. Was she just an innocent pedestrian, or was everything a threat now?
There was no barbed wire. No dogs. Suburban pets were too pampered to spend the night outside. Suburban yards were too fancy for wire. But there were hedges and fences. Some of the fences were high and some of the hedges had thorns. But they got through OK. Sorenson was very agile over the fences. Better than Reacher. And thorny hedges could be backed through. Cheap denim was a tough material.
It was going to be hard to tell exactly when they would hit the top of the hill, because they were on flat rolled lawns in yards built up with all kinds of terraced landscaping. But there was a weak moon in the sky and Reacher could see the power lines through the gaps between houses, and he saw them peak on one particular pole, in a very shallow inverted V, and he took that to mean they were at the crest of the rise.
The second house over the hill on the left.
Sorenson got it. She used her hands and mimed it out, one, two, and then she pointed at the two as if to say that’s the target. Reacher nodded and they moved on, through the yard they were in, over a picket fence with rabbit wire stapled to it, into the next yard, which belonged to the target’s next-door neighbour. It was crowded with stuff. There was a gas grill, and lawn chairs, and many and various wheeled vehicles. They were the kind small children sit astride and either pedal or scoot. One was in the shape of a tennis shoe. Reacher stopped and looked at the house. Three bedrooms, probably. Two of them full of kids. Thin walls. Nothing but siding and sheet rock. Better to shoot in the other direction. Unless the other neighbour was an orphanage.
They moved on, to the last fence. They looked over at their target.
Their target was a two-storey house.
It was about half as wide and twice as high as any of its neighbours. It had dark red siding. It had what looked like a full-width kitchen across the back. Then would come a front central hallway, probably, with rooms either side. And a staircase. Probably four rooms on the second floor. About the size of any other house, really, but split in half and stacked.
Not good. Not good at all. Two-storey houses were about eight times as difficult as one-storey houses. That had been Reacher’s experience.
Sorenson looked a question at him.
He winked. Left eye.
They climbed the fence. Into the target’s yard. It was minimally maintained. Rough grass, no flowerbeds. No trees. No ornamental plantings. No grills, no chairs, no toys.
But there was a cellar door.
And it was wide open.
It was the traditional kind of cellar door. Made of pressed metal, maybe five feet long by four feet wide, split down the middle into two halves, built at a very shallow angle into the ground, the top end hard up against the foundation of the house and about a foot and a half higher than the bottom end. It gave on to a short flight of rough wooden steps.
There was no light in the basement. Reacher walked left and right and saw no light anywhere in the house, except behind a small pebble-glass window on the ground floor, on the left-hand side of the building. A powder room, presumably. Occupied, possibly. Worst case, all kinds of fanatics sleeping four to every room, with one of them awake and in the toilet.
Dining room, living room, maybe four rooms upstairs.
Worst case, maybe twenty-four people.
He walked back to Sorenson and she held forked fingers under her eyes and then put them together and pointed them down through the cellar door: I’m going to take a look down there. He nodded. She took the wooden steps slowly and carefully, putting her weight near the outer ends, where creaks were less likely. She reached the concrete floor and ducked her head and disappeared under the house.
Reacher waited. Forty seconds. A whole minute.
Sorenson came back. The duck of the head, the reappearance in the well at the foot of the steps. In the moonlight she looked a little out of breath. But she nodded. OK. It’s clear. Reacher pointed at her, and tapped his left wrist, and then touched his ear. Wait until you hear us at the doors.
Sorenson disappeared again.
Reacher backed away until he could see down the side of the house to the street. Delfuenso was waiting there. In the shadows. She was leaning on a sidewalk tree. She was practically merged with it. He waved. She pushed off the tree. She mimed: What’s happening? A cupped hand, brought up to her shoulder, her elbow tucked in. He shrugged. A big exaggerated gesture: I’m not sure. She held her thumb sideways: Yes or no?
He held his thumb up.
Yes.
She nodded. She took a breath. She held her palms out to him, both hands, including the gun, and she spread all her fingers: In ten.
She curled a finger down: In nine.
Another finger: In eight.
Then she scooted sideways out of the picture, towards the front door, and Reacher did the same thing, towards the back.
Seven. Six. Five. Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Delfuenso had been counting faster than Reacher. He heard a hammering on the front door while his foot was still in the air. The hammering sounded like the butt of a Glock on a steel plate. A steel front door. Reinforced. A security measure. He wondered what kind of resistance the back door was about to offer him.
Not much, as it turned out.
He smashed his boot heel an inch above the knob, accelerating all the way, punching hard through the last final fraction, and the door burst inward and then Reacher was right there in the kitchen, a little fast, but otherwise with no more trouble than stepping over some kind of small hurdle in his way. The hammering continued at the front. The kitchen was cold and empty. Recently used, but currently deserted. Reacher stepped into the hallway, ready to find someone on the way to answer the door, ready to shoot that someone in the back.
The hallway was deserted.
The hammering continued. Loud enough to wake the dead. Reacher prowled the hallway, his gun stiff-armed way out in front of him, his torso jerking violently left and right from the hips, like a crazy disco dance. The house-storming shuffle. There was a dining room on the left. It was full of stuff and full of furniture. But it was empty of people.
There was a parlour on the right.
Full of stuff. Full of furniture.
Empty of people.
There were two more doors off the hallway. One had a bar of light under it. The pebble-glass window. The powder room. Occupied, possibly. Reacher took a long step and raised his boot and smashed it through the lock. The lock proved no stronger than the kitchen’s. The door crashed open and Reacher stepped back with his finger tight on the trigger.
The powder room was empty.
