Lee Child - Running Blind

Reacher nodded. Turned to Blake.

“You should be guarding these women,” he said.

Blake sighed heavily. “Do the arithmetic, for God’s sake. Eighty-eight women, and we don’t know which one is next, seventeen days to go, if he sticks to his cycle, three agents every twenty-four hours, that’s more than a hundred thousand man-hours, random locations all around the country. We just can’t do it. We don’t have the agents. We warned the local police departments, of course, but what can they do? Like outside of Spokane, Washington, for instance, the local police department is probably one man and a German shepherd. They drive by, time to time, I guess, but that’s all we got.”

“Have you warned the women, too?”

Blake looked embarrassed and shook his head. “We can’t. If we can’t guard them, we can’t warn them. Because what would we be saying? You’re in danger, but sorry girls, you’re entirely on your own? Can’t be done.”

“We need to catch this guy,” Poulton said. “That’s the only sure way to help these women.”

Lamarr nodded. “He’s out there, somewhere. We need to bring him in.”

Reacher looked at them. Three psychologists. They were trying to push all the right buttons. Trying to make it a challenge. He smiled. “I get the message.”

“OK, you go to Spokane tomorrow,” Lamarr said. “Meanwhile I’ll work the files some more. You’ll review them the day after tomorrow. That gives you the stuff you got from Trent, plus the stuff you get in Spokane, plus what we’ve already gotten. At which point we’ll expect some real progress from you.”

Reacher smiled again. “Whatever, Lamarr.”

“So eat and get to bed,” Blake said. “It’s a long way to Spokane. Early start tomorrow. Harper will go with you, of course.”

“To bed?”

Blake was embarrassed again. “To Spokane, asshole. ”

Reacher nodded. “Whatever, Blake.”

THE PROBLEM WAS, it was a challenge. He was sealed in his room, lying alone on the bed, staring up at the blind eye of the hidden camera. But he wasn’t seeing it. His gaze had dissolved just like it used to, into a blur. A green blur, like the whole of America had disappeared and returned to grassland and forest, the buildings gone, the roads gone, the noise gone, the population all gone, except for one man, somewhere. Reacher stared into the silent blur, a hundred miles, a thousand miles, three thousand miles, his gaze roving north and south, east and west, looking for the faint shadow, waiting for the sudden movement. He’s out there, somewhere. We need to catch this guy . He was walking around right now, or sleeping, or planning, or preparing, and he was thinking he was just about the smartest guy on the whole continent.

Well, we’ll see about that , Reacher thought. He stirred. He ought to get seriously involved. Or on the other hand, maybe not. It was a big decision, waiting to be made, but it wasn’t made yet. He rolled over and closed his eyes. He could think about it later. He could make the decision tomorrow. Or the next day. Whenever.

THE DECISION WAS made. About the interval. The interval was history. Time to speed things up a little. Three weeks was way too long to wait now. This sort of thing, you let the idea creep up on you, you look at it, you consider it, you see its value, you see its appeal, and the decision is really made for you, isn’t it? You can’t get the genie back in the bottle, not once it’s out. And this genie is out. All the way out. Up and running. So you run with it.

THERE WAS NO breakfast meeting the next morning. The day started too early. Harper opened the door before Reacher was even dressed. He had his pants on and was smoothing the wrinkles out of his shirt with his palm against the mattress.

“Love those scars,” she said.

She took a step closer, looking at his stomach with undisguised curiosity.

“What’s that one from?” she asked, pointing to his right side.

He glanced down. The right side of his stomach had a violent tracery of stitches in the shape of a twisted star. They bulged out above the muscle wall, white and angry.

“My mother did it,” he said.

“Your mother ?”

“I was raised by grizzly bears. In Alaska.”

She rolled her eyes and moved them up to the left side of his chest. There was a.38 caliber bullet hole there, punched right into the pectoral muscle. The hair was missing from around it. It was a big hole. She could have lost her little finger in it, right up to the first knuckle.

“Exploratory surgery,” he said. “Checking if I had a heart.”

“You’re happy this morning,” she said.

He nodded. “I’m always happy.”

“Did you get Jodie yet?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t tried since yesterday.”

“Why not?”

“Waste of time. She’s not there.”

“Are you worried?”

He shrugged. “She’s a big girl.”

“I’ll tell you if I hear anything.”

He nodded. “You better.”

“Where are they really from?” she asked. “The scars?”

He buttoned his shirt.

“The gut is from bomb shrapnel,” he said. “The chest, somebody shot me.”

“Dramatic life.”

He took his coat from the closet.

“No, not really. Pretty normal, wouldn’t you say? For a soldier? A soldier figuring to avoid physical violence is like a CPA figuring to avoid adding numbers. ”

“Is that why you don’t care about these women?”

He looked at her. “Who says I don’t care?”

“I thought you’d be more agitated about it.”

“Getting agitated won’t achieve anything.”

She paused. “So what will?”

“Working the clues, same as always.”

“There aren’t any clues. He doesn’t leave any.”

He smiled. “That’s a clue in itself, wouldn’t you say?”

She used her key from the inside and opened the door.

“That’s just talking in riddles,” she said.

He shrugged. “Better than talking in bullshit , like they do downstairs.”

THE SAME MOTOR pool guy brought the same car to the doors. This time he stayed in the driver’s seat, sitting square-on like a dutiful chauffeur. He drove them north on I-95 to the National Airport. It was before dawn. There was a halfhearted glow in the sky somewhere three hundred miles to the east, all the way out over the Atlantic Ocean. The only other illumination was from a thousand headlights streaming north toward work. The headlights were mostly on old-model cars. Old, therefore cheap, therefore owned by low-grade people aiming to be at their desks an hour before their bosses, so they would look good and get promotion, whereupon they could drive newer cars to work an hour later in the day. Reacher sat still and watched their shadowed faces as the Bureau driver sped past them, one by one.

Inside the airport terminal, it was reasonably busy. Men and women in dark raincoats walked quickly from one place to another. Harper collected two coach tickets from the United desk and carried them over to the check-in counter.

“We could use some legroom,” she said to the guy behind the counter.

She used her FBI pass for photo ID. She snapped it down like a poker player completing a flush. The guy hit a few keys and came up with an upgrade. Harper smiled, like she was genuinely surprised.

First class was half-empty. Harper took an aisle seat, trapping Reacher against the window like a prisoner. She stretched out. She was in a third different suit, this one a fine check in a muted gray. The jacket fell open and showed a hint of nipple through the shirt, and no shoulder holster.

“Left your gun at home?” Reacher asked.