Lee Child - 61 Hours

This was different.

There would be no laughter. There would be short seconds of furious gunfire and the stink of smoke and blood and then sudden deafened silence and a world-stands-still pause to look down and check yourself for damage. Then another pause to check your people. Then the shakes and the gulps and the need to throw up.

No laughter.

And this wasn’t hide and seek. Nobody was really hiding, and nobody was really seeking. Whoever was out there knew full well where Janet Salter was. An exact address would have been provided. Maybe turn-by-turn directions, maybe GPS coordinates. And she was just sitting right there, waiting for him. No art. Just brutality. Which disappointed Reacher a little. He was good at hide and seek. The real-world version, not the children’s game. Good at hiding, better at seeking. His former professional obligations had led him in that direction. He had been a good hunter of people. Fugitives, mainly. He had learned that empathy was the key. Understand their motives, their circumstances, their goals, their aims, their fears, their needs. Think like them. See what they see. Be them. He had gotten to the point where he could spend an hour with a case file, a second hour thinking, a third with maps and phone books, and then predict pretty much the exact building the guy would be found in.

He checked the view to the front.

No one there.

Just an empty white world that seemed to be frozen solid.

He glanced back at Janet Salter and said, ‘I need you to watch the front for me.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll be in the hallway for a spell. Anyone comes in through the kitchen or the library, I can get them in the corridor.’

‘OK.’

‘Stay back in the shadows, but keep your eyes peeled.’

‘OK.’

‘You see anything at all, you call out to me, loud and clear, with concise information. Numbers, location, direction, and description.’

‘OK.’

‘And do it standing up.’

‘Why?’

‘So if you fall asleep on the job I’ll hear you fall down.’

She took up a good position, well back in the room, invisible from outside, but with a decent angle. Her hand was still on the gun in her pocket. He stepped out to the hallway and moved the chair to the other side of the telephone table, so he could sit facing the rear of the house. He put his gun in his lap. Picked up the phone. Dialled the number he remembered.

‘Yes?’

‘Amanda, please.’

A pause. A click. The voice. It said, ‘You have got to be kidding me. Two hours ago you gave me two weeks’ worth of work, and already you’re calling me for a result?’

‘No, I’m not, but I can’t give you two weeks anyway. I need something by tomorrow at the latest.’

‘What are you, nuts?’

‘You said you were better than me, and I could have done it in a day. So a night should be good enough for you.’

‘What is that, psychology? You took motivation classes up at West Point?’

Reacher kept his hand on his gun and his eyes on the kitchen door. He asked, ‘Did you catch your guy yet?’

‘No, can’t you tell?’

‘Where are you looking?’

‘All the airports, plus boats on the Gulf Coast between Corpus Christi and New Orleans.’

‘He’s in a motel a little ways north of Austin. Almost certainly Georgetown. Almost certainly the second motel north of the bus depot.’

‘What, he’s wearing a secret ankle bracelet I don’t know about?’

‘No, he’s scared and alone. He needs help. Can’t get it anyplace except the overseas folks he’s in bed with. But he’s waiting to call them. They’ll help him if he’s clean, they’ll ditch him if he’s compromised. Maybe they’ll even kill him. He knows that. A fugitive from the law, that’s OK with them. A political fugitive, not so much. They’d worry about us tracking him all the way home, wherever home is. So he needs to know the news. He needs a media market that covers Fort Hood’s business. If it stays a plain vanilla domestic homicide, he’ll make the call. If it doesn’t, he’ll end up putting his gun in his mouth.’

‘We haven’t released the background.’

‘Then he’ll take a day or two to be sure, and then he’ll call them.’

‘But he could have gone anywhere for that. Waco, Dallas, Abilene, even.’

‘No, he made a careful choice. Abilene is too far and too small. And Waco and Dallas are too patriotic. He thinks that TV and radio there might sit on the espionage angle. What is he, Fourth Infantry? Audiences in Waco and Dallas don’t want to hear about a Fourth Infantry captain going bad. He knows that. But Austin is much more liberal. And it’s the state capital, so the news stations are a little looser. He needs the real skinny, and he knows that Austin is where he’s going to get it.’

‘You said Georgetown.’

‘He’s afraid of the actual city. Too many cops, too much going on. He didn’t drive, did he? Too afraid of cops on the highway. His car is still on the post, right?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘So he took the bus from Hood and stopped short. Georgetown is right there, close to Austin, but not too close. He watched out the window, all the way in. One motel after another. He mapped them in his head. He got out at the depot and walked back the way he came. Didn’t want unfamiliar territory. Didn’t want to walk too far, either. Too exposed. Too vulnerable. But even so he didn’t like the place nearest the depot. It felt too obvious. So he picked the second place. He’s there right now, in his room with the chain on, watching all the local channels.’

The voice didn’t answer.

Reacher said, ‘Wait one.’ He laid the phone gently on the table and got up. Checked the kitchen, checked the library. Nothing doing. He checked the parlour. Janet Salter was still on her feet, rock solid, deep in the shadows.

Nothing to see on the street.

No one coming.

Reacher went back to the hallway and sat down again in the chair and picked up the phone. The voice asked, ‘Anything else?’

‘Not that it matters, but he sat in the front third of the bus.’

‘You’re full of shit.’

‘It was a kind of camouflage. He didn’t want to give himself away as a fugitive. He thinks bad boys sit in back. He’s a Fourth Infantry captain. Probably a strait-laced kind of a guy. He remembers his school bus. The greasers sat in back. He didn’t.’

No answer. ‘Georgetown,’ Reacher said. ‘Second motel north of the bus depot. Check it out.’

No answer.

Reacher asked, ‘Where are your nearest people?’

‘I have people at Hood.’

‘So send them down. It’s about fifty miles. What can it cost you?’

No answer.

Reacher said, ‘And don’t forget, I need my information by tomorrow.’

He hung up. He put the chair back where it was supposed to be and stepped across the hallway and into the parlour. He checked the window.

Nothing to see.

No one coming.

Five to ten in the evening.

Thirty hours to go.

The clock ticked on. Reacher took every completed minute to be a small victory. A prison riot could not last for ever. Its initial phase would be relatively short. Hostages would be taken, territory would be seized, a standoff would ensue. Tactical adjustments would be made. The corrections officers would regroup. The cops would be released from duty. Reacher knew that.

Therefore the guy knew that, too.

Reacher didn’t understand why he didn’t come. His target was an old woman in a house. What was he waiting for?

At half past ten Janet Salter volunteered to make coffee. Reacher wouldn’t let her. Maybe that was what the guy was waiting for. The percolator needed water. Water came from the faucet. The faucet was over the sink. The sink was under the window. A preoccupied grey head two feet the other side of the glass might be a tempting target. So he made the coffee himself, after a duly cautious inspection of the vicinity. An unnecessary inspection, as it turned out. He stepped out the back door without coat, gloves, or hat. The cold hit him like a fist. It was raging. It was searching. It stunned him. Way below zero. Too far below to even guess at a number.