Lee Child - Personal

Casey Nice said, ‘Do you see a way in?’

I said, ‘We don’t have an armoured vehicle. Therefore we’re pretty much limited to the doors and the windows.’

‘Which will be wired for alarms.’

‘Which will be redundant. They won’t need a bell on the roof to tell them we’re there.’

‘Which is where, exactly? In a house with four remaining guards and two world-class killers? Who collectively outnumber us three to one? In a structure much easier to defend than attack?’

‘Assuming those questions were rhetorical, I think that’s a fair summary.’

‘How long would it take to build a giant subwoofer?’

‘I should have bought cigarette lighters, when I bought that shopping bag.’

She said, ‘Seriously. I spent time at Fort Benning. They’d tell us we need to rethink this thing from zero minus about a hundred hours.’

‘Who would?’

‘The instructors.’

‘Who all lived long enough to become instructors by improvising every single step of the way. They know plans are useless.’

‘Reacher, we have to have a plan.’

I said, ‘Let’s take a look at the aerial photographs.’

The aerial photographs were in one sense amazing, in that they were all pin sharp, rock solid, high definition colour images, whether taken from a satellite many miles above the earth, or a silent drone too high to be seen, or a lurching helicopter a thousand feet up. In another sense they were useless, because they showed us no more than we had seen for ourselves through the night-vision binoculars. The same nothing, but from a different angle. There was a note against the helicopter shots saying the house had not been the primary focus of the mission. The focus was supposed to have been a meeting over drinks in the garden. Those pictures were included, for reference, and showed nothing but three men throwing their arms up over their heads. But by accident the coverage of the house was the best of the three. We could see all four walls pretty well. Doors, windows, points of strength and weakness. Of which there was more strength than weakness, overall. It was not an easy target, even before worrying about who or what was inside.

I said, ‘We’ll figure something out. We have plenty of time. We have to deal with Joey first anyway.’

She said, ‘Do you have a plan for that, at least?’

‘What I did last time worked pretty well. Imagine if we had been out there in that parking lot. Behind the little supermarket. In the shadows. We couldn’t have missed.’

‘You want to do that again?’

‘I don’t want to. Feel free to come up with alternative ideas.’

‘Would it even work again?’

‘Good point. Probably not with a guy the same level as before. Joey might smell a rat. We’re going to have to invoke his elaborate courtesies. We need to find someone he can’t stay away from.’

‘Like who?’

‘Old Charlie White would be favourite. But I imagine he’s taking extra precautions. So I guess we should look at either Tommy Miller or Billy Thompson. Which might spark some kind of infighting, possibly. Some kind of internecine conflict, over the spoils. In which case maybe all three of the others would show up at the scene, just to keep an eye on each other. In which case we could give the Romford Boys a real serious leadership vacuum.’

‘Joey has to be the priority.’

‘He will be. But if there are targets of opportunity after he’s down, we should be prepared to react accordingly.’

‘I should clear it with General O’Day.’

‘Go right ahead. But first text Bennett and ask him what kind of security Miller and Thompson use. As in, the same as Joey, or better, or worse? And explain why we’re asking.’

She found her phone, and her thumbs started dancing. I heard the sound of her first text leaving, a comic noise, like a cartoon character slipping on a banana skin, and then she continued typing, on and on. The update for O’Day, I was sure. Full and complete compliance. O’Day had that kind of effect on people. I started thinking about bulletproof glass again, and I asked her, ‘Did you tell O’Day we were headed for Wallace Court this morning?’

She said, ‘It’s in the first paragraph here.’

‘No, I mean, did you tell him ahead of time, that we would be there in the future?’

She slowed her thumbs, and spoke slowly, too, talking and typing all at once. She said, ‘No, not ahead of time. I wasn’t sure we would actually go. Because I wasn’t sure why we would want to. So all in all I figured a retrospective report would work better.’

‘OK,’ I said. She sped up again, and I watched her. Eventually she stopped typing, and read it all through, and sent it, with the same banana-skin noise. I asked her, ‘Do we have addresses for Miller and Thompson?’

‘They weren’t in the bios,’ she said.

‘Then text Bennett again. I’m sure he knows.’

The next hour was mostly texting, back and forth with Bennett and O’Day, asking and answering questions, and stockpiling data. Miller and Thompson lived in Chigwell too, four streets from each other, and four streets from Joey. No operational reason. Simply that Chigwell was where you went when you made money in Romford. Their security arrangements were the same as Joey’s too, at least on paper. They each had a driver and four bodyguards. Three rotations a day. Miller had a new-model Range Rover, black, and Thompson had a new-model Range Rover Sport, also black. As good as Bentleys, according to many. Three lieutenants, all treated the same. At least on paper. But Bennett said in fact the people assigned to Miller and Thompson were second-rate. Little Joey got the pick of the litter. Partly because he was Little Joey, and partly because Miller and Thompson were bureaucrats. Vital, but not at the heart of the action. Hence a whole different dynamic. Between the two of them, there was nothing to choose. Either one would be a target of equal softness.

‘Comparatively, I suppose,’ Casey Nice said.

I said, ‘We need a vehicle.’

‘General Shoemaker gave us credit cards. We could rent one.’

‘Not a good idea. Too much paperwork.’

‘Maybe Mr Bennett would lend us one.’

‘I’m sure his are all fitted with satellite trackers, in which case he’d be worried about subpoenas.’

‘So how?’

‘Second choice would be steal one. But ideally we should find another pair of foot soldiers and take their panel van. That would buy us a couple of seconds, with Miller or Thompson. They wouldn’t see the threat right away. We’d look like their own people. At least at first.’

‘So that’s two attacks we’re making, not one.’

‘With two more still to go,’ I said. ‘The foot soldiers, then Miller or Thompson, then Little Joey Green, then whoever is still holed up in his house.’

‘So we have to survive four separate times. How likely is that?’

‘Like the World Series. A big ask, but someone does it every year.’

‘It’s a total of eighteen people.’

‘Twenty. You’re forgetting the drivers. Miller and Thompson have one, and Joey has one. But it’s not twenty all at once. That’s the good news here. Maximum of six at a time, when we get to the big names, with the driver each and the four bodyguards.’

‘Some of which are the pick of the litter, standing in front of a guy nearly seven feet tall.’

‘We can aim over their heads.’

‘This seems crazy to me.’

‘Because you aren’t quite sure what to expect. To which I say what?’

She thought back, and repeated it straight up. She had a good memory for words. She said, ‘You say no one ever is sure what to expect. On either side. Which is a good thing. It means the game goes to the fastest thinker. That’s all I need to be.’