Lee CHILD - Better off Dead

“When I wake up? What, like, in the morning?”

“In the morning. The afternoon. Whenever it happens to be.”

I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him into a sitting position. Then I kicked him in the face again. A little harder that time.

I tapped on the door to room 212. Gently. I was trying to sound friendly. There was no reply, so I tried again.

“Go away.” It was Sonia’s voice, but there was an edge to it. I couldn’t tell if she was angry. Or sad. Or scared. Then a thought crossed my mind. An unwelcome one. Maybe one of Dendoncker’s guys was in there with her. Someone could have sneaked up while I was dealing with the pair downstairs. Who knew what the reception guy had reported. Sonia might have a gun to her head. Which meant I couldn’t risk breaking down the door. Which severely limited my options. Until I remembered what Fenton had said about the routine she and Michael had with names. Sonia and Michael had been a couple. Maybe they did the same thing.

I stood to the side and knocked again. “Heather? You in there? You OK?”

I waited. I heard footsteps from inside the room. They were light, but slow. A moment later the door opened. It was Sonia. She was still in her yellow sundress. And there was no gun in sight. She leaned out into the corridor. Looked left and right, and spotted me. Her eyes were red. Her cheeks were damp.

“Reacher?” she said. “Thanks for checking in. But I’m fine. I just want to be on my own. So please go, OK?”

“I’m not checking in. I need your help.”

“Oh. OK. With what?”

“Have you got a car?”

“Of course. Do you want to borrow it?”

“Where is it?”

“Parked out back.”

“Good. I want you to drive me someplace.”

“Where?”

“Have you got a go-bag handy?”

“Of course. Why?”

“Grab it. And your keys. I’ll explain in the car.”

Sonia’s car was tiny. It was called a Mini, and with good reason. I barely fit inside even with the passenger seat cranked all the way back. It was red with white wheels, and decals of Old Glory on the roof and the curved front edges of the door mirrors. I wished she drove something more discreet, in the circumstances. But at least it fit in the hotel parking lot. It was in another courtyard, this one contained within the building itself. It was a small cramped space with a low arch leading to the street on the east side. I guess it was originally for receiving deliveries and allowing light into the rooms on the inner side of the corridors.

The street that ran from the arch led to the road the guy in the Lincoln had taken before making his final U-turn. Sonia turned left, toward town, and I brought her up to speed with events since I left her in her room. She saw the opportunity right away.

“I’ll watch the back of the house,” she said. “That way no one can sneak out unnoticed. Or in. I just have one question. If I see anyone, how do I warn you?”

“Honk your horn.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for me to call you? Or text? Otherwise I’ll be warning them, too.”

“I don’t have a phone.” I pulled out the one I’d taken from the guy in the Lincoln’s trunk. The screen had locked itself. “Not one I can use.”

Sonia reached around, took her purse from the Mini’s token backseat, and balanced it on her lap. She rummaged inside with one hand, took out a phone, and passed it to me. “Here. You can use this.”

The phone was old school. I flipped it open. There was a keypad on one side. A real one. And a screen on the other. It was small. Black and white. And it didn’t even ask for a PIN.

“It’s the one Michael used to call me on.” Sonia closed her eyes for a moment. “He had a matching one. I guess he was getting paranoid, too. He didn’t like the idea of lots of calls between numbers Dendoncker could find out about.”

Sonia took me to Fenton’s hotel. I switched to the Chevy and she followed me around the maze of streets until we reached the turn just north of the house. She peeled off and I continued to the street to the south. There were no cars parked at the far end. There were no cars anywhere in sight. That could mean Dendoncker’s guys had fallen for my ETA ruse. Or they hadn’t arrived yet for some other reason. It also meant I would have to find somewhere else to dump the Chevy. It was too conspicuous to leave on the route Dendoncker’s guys would take.

I turned around, drove back to the bigger road, and tried the residential street on the far side. There was an RV parked halfway down. It was an antique. It looked like it hadn’t moved in years. Its tires were flat. Its windows were opaque with grime. Its paintwork was a mess of beige and brown stripes, all crusted over with sand and dirt. The only thing going for it was its size. It was easily big enough to conceal a regular sedan. I tucked the Chevy in on the far side and made my way back to the house on foot.

There were still no vehicles nearby. I approached slowly and pushed through the tangle of twisted trees between it and its neighbor. I peered in through the first square window. Saw no one inside. Tried the other windows in turn. There was no sign of anybody. I crept around to the front and shimmied under the large window, past the door, to the far side of the building. Checked the smaller bedroom’s window. There was no one. The bathroom window was frosted so I couldn’t make anything out. I ducked below it and tried the larger bedroom. No one was there, either.

I figured that according to the plan, if they were already inside and somehow concealed, they would be expecting the door to open so that their buddies could deliver me. So I went back around, making sure not to pass in front of any windows. Slid the key into the lock. Turned it. Crouched down, and pushed. I figured that if anyone was attracted by the movement they would expect whoever was coming in to be standing. They would be aiming at head height, if they were over-endowed with caution. But no one was there to stare in my direction. No one was there to point a gun. So I went in and checked the house from the inside. I looked in every room. Looked down through the hole in the floor. Made absolutely certain. The place was deserted.

I had no car to take cover in. There were no buildings or natural features to give me shelter. So I went outside and pushed my way back into the thicket of trees. I sat and leaned against the wall of the house. The leaves and branches were dense enough. As long as I didn’t move and didn’t make any sound, a person could pass within a few feet and not know I was there. The clock in my head told me that if Dendoncker’s guys were aiming to synchronize their arrival with my bogus ETA, they should be there within five minutes.

Five minutes crawled past. No cars arrived. No one walked up the path. There was no word from Sonia. I stayed where I was. Didn’t make a sound. Another five minutes ticked away. And another. The guy in the Lincoln said he’d never had to wait more than ten minutes. I waited another ten. And another. That was thirty minutes. Half an hour after the implied RV. The waiting didn’t bother me. I’d be happy to wait for the rest of the afternoon if it brought the right result. I’d wait all night. But what I didn’t want to do was waste time. There was no point sitting around the water hole if the big game had been scared off. I checked the windows again, just in case. There was no one inside. So I made my way to the parallel street. I spotted Sonia’s flag-on-wheels right away. I walked across to it and folded myself into the passenger seat.

I said, “It was a bust.”

“Shit.” Sonia frowned. “What now?”

“Any chance they approached from this side and saw you?”