Lee Child - Tripwire

He spent five minutes on his teeth with the new toothbrush. The bristles were hard, and it felt like they were doing some good in there. Then he dried off and shook the creases out of his new clothes. Put the pants on without the shirt and wandered through to the kitchen for something to eat.

Jodie was in there. She was fresh from the shower, too. Her hair was dark with water and hanging straight down. She was wearing an oversize white T-shirt that finished an inch above her knees. The material was thin. Her legs were long and smooth. Her feet were bare. She was very slender, except where she shouldn’t be. He caught his breath.

“Morning, Reacher,” she said.

“Morning, Jodie,” he said back.

She was looking at him. Her eyes were all over him. Something in her face.

“That blister,” she said. ”Looks worse.”

He squinted down. It was still red and angry. Spreading slightly, and puffy.

“You put the ointment on?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Forgot,” he said.

“Get it,” she said.

He went back to his bathroom and found it in the brown bag. Brought it back to the kitchen. She took it from him and unscrewed the cap. Pierced the metal seal with the plastic spike and squeezed a dot of the salve onto the pad of her index finger. She was concentrating on it, tongue between her teeth. She stepped in front of him and raised her hand. Touched the blister gently and rubbed with her fingertip. He stared rigidly over her head. She was a foot away from him. Naked under her shirt. Rubbing his bare chest with her fingertip. He wanted to take her in his arms. He wanted to lift her off her feet and crush her close. Kiss her gently, starting with her neck. He wanted to turn her face up to his and kiss her mouth. She was rubbing small gentle circles on his chest. He could smell her hair, damp and glossy. He could smell her skin. She was tracing her finger the length of the burn. A foot away from him, naked under her shirt. He gasped and clenched his hands. She stepped away.

“Hurting?” she asked.

“What?”

“Was I hurting you?”

He saw her fingertip, shiny from the grease.

“A little,” he said.

She nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you needed it.”

He nodded back.

“I guess,” he said.

Then the crisis was past. She screwed the cap back on the tube and he moved away, just to be moving. He pulled the refrigerator door and took a bottle of water. Found a banana in a bowl on the counter. She put the tube of ointment on the table.

“I’ll go get dressed,” she said. “We should get moving.”

“OK,” he said. “I’ll be ready.”

She disappeared back into her bedroom and he drank the water and ate the fruit. Wandered back to his bedroom and shrugged the shirt on and tucked it in. Found his socks and shoes and jacket. Strolled through to the living room to wait. He pulled the blind all the way up and unlocked the window and pushed it up. Leaned right out and scanned the street four floors below.

Very different in the early daylight. The shiny neon wash was gone, and the sun was coming over the buildings opposite and bouncing around in the street. The lazy nighttime knots of people were gone, too, replaced by purposeful striding workers heading north and south with paper cups of coffee and muffins clutched in napkins. Cabs were grinding down through the traffic and honking at the lights to make them change. There was a gentle breeze and he could smell the river.

The building was on the west side of lower Broadway. Traffic was one-way, to the south, running left to right under the window. Jodie’s normal walk to work would give her a right turn out of her lobby, walking with the traffic. She would keep to the right-hand sidewalk, to stay in the sun. She would cross Broadway at a light maybe six or seven blocks down. Walk the last couple of blocks on the left-hand sidewalk and then make the left turn, east down Wall Street to her office.

So how would they aim to grab her up? Think like the enemy. Think like the two guys. Physical, unsubtle, favoring a direct approach, willing and dangerous, but not really schooled beyond the point of amateur enthusiasm. It was pretty clear what they would do. They would have a four-door vehicle waiting in a side street maybe three blocks south, parked in the right lane, facing east, ready to swoop out and hang the right on Broadway. They would be waiting together in the front seats, silent. They would be scanning left to right through the windshield, watching the crosswalk in front of them. They would expect to see her hurrying across, or pausing and waiting for the signal. They would wait a beat and ease out and make the right turn. Driving slow. They would fall in behind her. Pull level. Pull ahead. Then the guy in the passenger seat would be out, grabbing her, opening the rear door, forcing her inside, cramming himself in after her. One smooth, brutal movement. A crude tactic, but not difficult. Not difficult at all. More or less guaranteed to succeed, depending on the target and the level of awareness. Reacher had done the same thing, many times, with targets bigger and stronger and more aware than Jodie. Once, he had done it with Leon himself at the wheel.

He bent forward from the waist and put his whole upper body out through the window. Craned his head around to the right and gazed down the street. Looked hard at the corners, two and three and four blocks south. It would be one of those.

“Ready,” Jodie called to him.

THEY RODE DOWN ninety floors together to the underground garage. Walked through to the right zone and over to the bays leased along with Hobie’s office suite.

“We should take the Suburban,” the enforcer said. “Bigger.”

“OK,” Tony said. He unlocked it and slid into the driver’s seat. The enforcer hoisted himself into the passenger seat. Glanced back at the empty load bed. Tony fired it up and eased out toward the ramp to the street.

“So how do we do this?” Tony asked.

The guy smiled confidently. “Easy enough. She’ll be walking south on Broadway. We’ll wait around a corner until we see her. Couple of blocks south of her building. We see her pass by on the crosswalk, we pull around the comer, get alongside her, and that’s that, right?”

“Wrong,” Tony said. “We’ll do it different.”

The guy looked across at him. “Why?”

Tony squealed the big car up and out into the sunlight.

“Because you’re not very smart,” he said. “If that’s how you’d do it, there’s got to be a better way, right? You screwed up in Garrison. You’ll screw up here. She’s probably got this Reacher guy with her. He beat you there, he’ll beat you here. So whatever you figure is the best way to do it, that’s the last thing we’re going to do.”

“So how are we going to do it?”

“I’ll explain it to you real careful,” Tony said. “I’ll try to keep it real simple.”

REACHER SLID THE window back down. Clicked the lock and rattled the blind down into position. She was standing just inside the doorway, hair still darkened by the shower, dressed in a simple sleeveless linen dress, bare legs, plain shoes. The dress was the same color as her wet hair, but would end up darker as her hair dried. She was carrying a purse and a large leather briefcase, the size he had seen commercial pilots using. It was clearly heavy. She put it down and ducked away to her garment bag, which was on the floor against a wall, where he had dumped it the previous night. She slid the envelope containing Leon’s will out of the pocket and unclicked the lid of the briefcase and stowed it inside.

“Want me to carry that?” he asked.

She smiled and shook her head.

“Union town,” she said. “Bodyguarding doesn’t include drayage around here.”