Lee Child - 61 Hours

‘I’m losing two-zip.’

‘How?’

‘Two KIA.’

‘Who?’

‘A cop and an old woman.’

‘Two-zip? It isn’t a game.’

‘You know damn well it’s a game.’

‘It’s people.’

‘I know it’s people. I’m looking at one of them right now. And the only thing stopping me putting my gun to my head is pretending it’s a game.’

‘You got a gun?’

‘In my pocket. A nice old.38.’

‘Leave it in your pocket, OK?’

Reacher said nothing.

Susan said, ‘Don’t touch it, OK?’

‘Give me a good reason.’

‘A.38 won’t necessarily get the job done. You know that. We’ve all seen it happen. You could end up like the general.’

‘I’ll aim carefully. Square on. I’ll make sure.’

‘Don’t do it, Reacher.’

‘Relax. I’m not going to shoot myself. Not my style. I’m just going to sit here until my head explodes all on its own.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault.’

‘It’s just that I don’t like to think of it as a game.’

‘You know it’s a game. It has to be a game. That’s the only way to make it bearable.’

‘OK, it’s a game. What are we in? The final quarter?’

‘Overtime.’

‘So give me the play by play so far. Brief me. Bring me up to date. Like we were working together.’

‘I wish we were.’

‘We are. What have we got?’

He didn’t answer.

She said, ‘Reacher, what have we got?’

So Reacher took a breath and began to tell her what they had, slowly at first, and then faster as he picked up on the old shorthand rhythms he remembered from years of talking to people who understood what he understood, and saw what he saw, and grasped what didn’t need to be spelled out. He told her about the bus, and the meth, and the trial, and the jail, and the police department, and the crisis plan, and the lawyer, and the witness protection, and the riot, and Plato, and the underground storage, and Peterson, and Janet Salter.

Her first response was: ‘Put your hand in your pocket.’

He asked, ‘Why?’

‘Take out your gun.’

‘Now that’s OK?’

‘More than OK. It’s necessary. The bad guy saw you.’

‘When?’

‘While you were alone with Salter in the house. He had five hours.’

‘He didn’t come. He was up at the prison the whole time.’

‘That’s an assumption. We don’t know that for sure. He could have checked in, dropped off the radio net, slipped away, gone back. And do we even know that they really called the roll at all? A thing like that, sure, it’s in the plan as written, but who’s to say it actually gets done, you know, in real life, in a situation like that, right when the shit is hitting the fan?’

‘Whatever, I didn’t see him.’

‘He doesn’t know that. If he saw you, he’s going to assume you saw him. He’s going to come after you.’

‘That’s a lot of ifs and assumptions.’

‘Reacher, think about it. What’s to stop this guy getting away with it? He popped the lawyer, and Peterson, and Salter, three rounds from a throw-down pistol. He’s saving a fourth for you, and then he’s home free. Nobody will ever know who he was.’

‘I already don’t know who he was.’

‘He’s not sure of that. And he’s not sure you won’t figure it out eventually. You’re his last obstacle.’

‘Why hasn’t he come after me already?’

‘No safe opportunity yet. That’s the only possible reason. He’s going to be cautious with you. More so than with the others. The lawyer was a patsy, Peterson was a bumpkin, and Salter was a harmless old lady. You’re different.’

‘Not so very different.’

‘You need to pull back to Rapid City. Hole up somewhere and talk to the FBI.’

‘I don’t have a vehicle.’

‘You have a telephone. You’re talking on it right now. Put it down and then call the FBI. Keep your guard up until they get there.’

He didn’t answer.

She asked, ‘Are you going to do that?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘You weren’t responsible for those people, you know.’

‘Says who?’

‘All of this would have happened just the same without you. It’s a million-to-one chance you were there at all.’

‘Peterson was a nice guy. And a good cop. He wanted to be a better cop. He was one of those guys who knew enough to know he didn’t know everything. I liked him.’

Susan said nothing.

‘I liked Mrs Salter, too. She was a noble old bird.’

‘You need to get out of there. You’re outnumbered. Plato won’t come alone.’

‘I hope he doesn’t.’

‘It’s dangerous.’

Reacher said, ‘For him.’

Susan said, ‘Do you remember as a kid, watching a movie about a creature in a lagoon?’

‘Is that thing still in my file?’

‘In the back index.’

‘And you read it?’

‘I was interested.’

‘They got it wrong. And they took away my blade, which pissed me off.’

‘How did they get it wrong?’

‘I wasn’t some kind of a genetic freak. I was born as scared as anyone. Maybe more so. I lay awake crying with the best of them. But I got tired of it. I trained myself out of it. An act of will. I re-routed fear into aggression. It was easy enough to do.’

‘At the age of six?’

‘No, I was an old hand by then. I was four when I started. I had the job done by the time I was five.’

‘Is that what you’re doing now? Re-routing guilt into aggression?’

‘I took an oath. Same as you did. All enemies, foreign and domestic. Looks like I’ve got one of each here. Plato, and whoever his bent cop is.’

‘Your oath lapsed.’

‘It never lapses.’

She asked, ‘How does a six-year-old have his own switchblade anyway?’

‘Didn’t you have one?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Do you have one now?’

‘No.’

‘You should get one.’

She said, ‘And you should go to Rapid City and do this thing properly.’

‘We’re short of time.’

‘You have no legal standing.’

‘So put another tag on my file. Or save them all some effort. Just Xerox it. Three copies, FBI, DEA, and the local South Dakota people. Send them out overnight.’

‘You’re not thinking straight. You’re punishing yourself. You can’t win them all. You don’t have to win them all.’

‘They put you in charge of the 110th?’

‘And I’ll stay in charge. As long as I want.’

‘This time it was really important.’

‘They’re all important.’

‘Not like this. I’m staring at a nice old lady with a hole in her head. She mattered more to me than being hungry.’

‘Stop looking at her.’

Reacher looked down at the floor.

Susan said, ‘You can’t change the past.’

‘I know.’

‘You can’t atone. And you don’t need to, anyway. That guy deserved to be in a coma, maybe for ever.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Go to Rapid City.’

‘No.’

‘Then come to Virginia. We’ll deal with this together.’

Reacher said nothing.

‘Don’t you want to come to Virginia?’

‘Sure I do.’

‘So do it.’

‘I will. Tomorrow.’

‘Do it now.’

‘It’s the middle of the night.’

‘There was a question you used to ask me.’

‘Was there?’

‘You stopped asking it.’

‘What was it?’

‘You used to ask if I was married.’

‘Are you?’

‘No.’

Reacher looked up again. Janet Salter stared right back at him.

He said, ‘I’ll leave tomorrow.’

He hung up the phone.

Five minutes to two in the morning. Two hours to go.