Lee Child - 61 Hours

A clerk in the office, half awake.

A pass key, in the desk drawer.

The six W3s split up, three to the rear, three to the front. One of the front guys stood back, ready for anything. The other two entered every room, bold as you like, guns drawn, for close-up in-their-face flashlight examinations of the somnolent forms they found.

All twelve rooms.

Their man wasn’t there.

Reacher prowled through Janet Salter’s house one more time. By that point he was totally accustomed to its sounds. The creak of the boards, the creak of the stairs, an occluded right-angle joint in a steam pipe that hissed louder than all the others, a window sash that trembled a little in its frame because of the freshening wind. The smell of the air was changing. Tiny eddying draughts were stirring odours out of the rugs and the drapes. They were not unpleasant. Just old. Dyed wool, dusty velvet, mothballs, beeswax furniture polish, cigar smoke, pipe tobacco. Ancient, deep aromas, like an olfactory portrait of how prosperous frontier families used to live. Reacher sensed them behind the local mineral smell from the new oil on the gun he was carrying with him everywhere.

He came back to the parlour. Janet Salter’s gun was still in her pocket. Her hand was still resting on its butt. He asked her, ‘You still OK?’

She said with great formality, ‘I have reached the conclusion that I am privileged.’

‘In what way?’

‘I’m experiencing the chance to live out my principles. I believe that ordinary citizens must confront wickedness. But I believe in due process, too. I believe in an accused’s right to a fair trial and I believe in his right to confront the witnesses against him. But it’s so easy to talk the talk, isn’t it? Not everyone gets the opportunity to walk the walk. But now I am.’

‘You’re doing great,’ Reacher said.

He eased past her to the window.

Saw the wild bounce of headlight beams on the street.

A car, coming on fast.

IT WAS PETERSON, LEADING WHAT LOOKED LIKE MOST OF THE BOLTON PD. Six cars, seven, eight. Then a ninth. They jammed and slid and crunched to a stop all over the road. Twelve cops spilled out, then thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. They drew their weapons and formed up for an approach driven partly by desperate haste and partly by extreme caution. Because they had no idea what they were going to find.

Either tranquillity, or a double homicide.

Reacher stepped out to the hallway and lined up on the hinge side of the front door. He flung it open and stayed well out of sight. He didn’t want to get fired on by mistake. Fifteen nervous cops made for an unpredictable situation.

He called, ‘Peterson? This is Reacher. We’re all clear.’

No answer.

He tried again. ‘Peterson?’

Icy air flooded in. Peterson’s voice came with it. ‘Reacher?’

Reacher called back, ‘All clear in here. Holster your weapons and come on in.’

They came in at a run, all fifteen of them, Peterson first, then the four women, then the three guys from the stake-out cars, then seven more bodies Reacher didn’t know. They brought gusts and billows of freezing air in with them. They all had red, chapped faces. The warm inside air hit them and they all started wrenching open their parkas and pulling the gloves from their hands and the hats from their heads.

The four women formed up around Janet Salter like a cordon and bustled her off to the kitchen. Peterson ordered the three night watch cars to their positions and sent the remaining seven men back to the station. Reacher watched normality restored from the parlour window. Within five minutes all was as it had been five hours earlier.

Peterson asked, ‘So what happened here?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Reacher said. ‘What happened there?’

‘A riot. Not that we saw much of anything. They shut it down very fast.’

‘Because it was phoney. It was a diversion.’

Peterson nodded. ‘But their guy never came here.’

‘And the big question is, why the hell not?’

‘Because he saw you.’

‘But I didn’t see him. Which begs another big question. If he’s good enough to see me without me seeing him, why didn’t he just go for it?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘I saw a woman with a big white dog.’

‘When?’

‘A little after eleven.’

‘Mrs Lowell. She’s a neighbour. She walks her dog every night.’

‘You should have told me that. I might have shot her.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Peterson clamped his palms tight on his nose. It must have been hurting. His skin temperature had vaulted sixty degrees in sixty seconds. Then he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Bad thing to say, I guess, but I kind of wish the guy had come tonight. I’m not sure we can take another month of this.’

Reacher said, ‘I don’t think you’ll have to. I think they’re fresh out of diversions.’

‘They can start another riot any old time they want to.’

‘They can’t. That’s the point. Prison riots need a critical mass. About a third of the population would riot every day of the week, given the chance. Another third never would. It’s the middle third that counts. The swing votes. Like an election. And they’re spent now. Their passion has gone. It will take a year before they’re back in the game.’

Peterson said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘And your biker pal can’t organize an escape fast enough. So you’re in the clear now. You’re safe.’

‘You think?’

‘You might never hear that siren again.’

Five to one in the morning.

Twenty-seven hours to go.

At a quarter past one the phone in the hallway rang. Janet Salter came out of the kitchen to answer it. She passed the receiver to Peterson. Peterson listened for a second and went to find Reacher in the parlour.

‘It’s the woman from the 110th MP,’ he said. ‘How does she know this number?’

‘She has a caller ID system,’ Reacher said. ‘With coordinates. She’s probably watching this house right now, on Google Earth.’

‘But it’s dark.’

‘Don’t ask me how it works.’ He stepped out to the hallway and sat down in the chair. Picked up the receiver. Asked, ‘You got my answers for me?’

The voice said, ‘Not yet.’

‘So why are you calling so late? I could have been fast asleep.’

‘I just wanted to tell you I got my guy.’

‘Was I right?’

‘I’m not going to answer that question. I’m not going to give you the satisfaction.’

‘So I was right.’

‘Actually, not quite. He was in the third motel north of the bus depot.’

‘Because the first two were close together? He had to go on to the third, for distance?’

‘You’re good.’

‘I used to do this for a living.’

‘I’m duly impressed.’

‘How was he?’

‘You tell me.’

Reacher said, ‘He was awake. He had a loaded firearm and shoes on. His bag was packed and his jacket was on the back of a chair. He struggled for less than ten seconds and then he gave it up.’

‘You’re very good.’

‘Not good enough to survive the general’s head.’

‘I still want to hear that story.’

‘Then get me my answers. A fair exchange is no robbery.’

‘We’re close. We can see the money coming out of Congress. But we can’t see it arriving at the Department of the Army. It’s dropping out of sight somewhere along the way. We’re narrowing it down. We’ll get there.’

‘When?’

‘Give me the rest of the night. Call me at eight o’clock in the morning.’

‘You’re good, too.’

‘I try.’

Reacher said, ‘There’s a local rumour about a scandal. Word on the street is the place was never used because its purpose was too revolting.’