Lee Child: The Hard Way

“What kind?”

“The kind that will make it worth your while if you give them a description of the individual who drove that car away.”

“Worth my while how?”

“Financially,” the guy said. “Is there any other way?”

“Lots of other ways,” Reacher said. “I think I’ll stay right here.”

“This is very serious.”

“How?”

The guy in the suit sat down again.

“I can’t tell you that,” he said.

“Goodbye,” Reacher said.

“Not my choice,” the guy said. “Mr. Lane made it mission-critical that nobody knows. For very good reasons.”

Reacher tilted his cup and checked the contents. Nearly gone.

“You got a name?” he asked.

“Do you?”

“You first.”

In response the guy stuck a thumb into the breast pocket of his suit coat and slid out a black leather business card holder. He opened it up and used the same thumb to slide out a single card. He passed it across the table. It was a handsome item. Heavy linen stock, raised lettering, ink that still looked wet. At the top it said: Operational Security Consultants .

“OSC,” Reacher said. “Like the license plate.”

The British guy said nothing.

Reacher smiled. “You’re security consultants and you got your car stolen? I can see how that could be embarrassing.”

The guy said, “It’s not the car we’re worried about.”

Lower down on the business card was a name: John Gregory . Under the name was a subscript: British Army, Retired . Then a job title: Executive Vice President .

“How long have you been out?” Reacher asked.

“Of the British Army?” the guy called Gregory said. “Seven years.”

“Unit?”

“SAS.”

“You’ve still got the look.”

“You too,” Gregory said. “How long have you been out?”

“Seven years,” Reacher said.

“Unit?”

“U.S. Army CID, mostly.”

Gregory looked up. Interested. “Investigator?”

“Mostly.”

“Rank?”

“I don’t remember,” Reacher said. “I’ve been a civilian seven years.”

“Don’t be shy,” Gregory said. “You were probably a lieutenant colonel at least.”

“Major,” Reacher said. “That’s as far as I got.”

“Career problems?”

“I had my share.”

“You got a name?”

“Most people do.”

“What is it?”

“Reacher.”

“What are you doing now?”

“I’m trying to get a quiet cup of coffee.”

“You need work?”

“No,” Reacher said. “I don’t.”

“I was a sergeant,” Gregory said.

Reacher nodded. “I figured. SAS guys usually are. And you’ve got the look.”

“So will you come with me and talk to Mr. Lane?”

“I told you what I saw. You can pass it on.”

“Mr. Lane will want to hear it direct.”

Reacher checked his cup again. “Where is he?”

“Not far. Ten minutes.”

“I don’t know,” Reacher said. “I’m enjoying my espresso.”

“Bring it with you. It’s in a foam cup.”

“I prefer peace and quiet.”

“All I want is ten minutes.”

“Seems like a lot of fuss over a stolen car, even if it was a Mercedes Benz.”

“This is not about the car.”

“So what is it about?”

“Life and death,” Gregory said. “Right now more likely death than life.”

Reacher checked his cup again. There was less than a lukewarm eighth-inch left, thick and scummy with espresso mud. That was all. He put the cup down.

“OK,” he said. “So let’s go.”

THE BLUE GERMANsedan turned out to be a new BMW 7-series with OSC vanity plates on it. Gregory unlocked it from ten feet away with a key fob remote and Reacher got in the front passenger seat sideways and found the switch and moved the seat back for legroom. Gregory pulled out a small silver cell phone and dialed a number.

“Incoming with a witness,” he said, clipped and British. Then he closed the phone and fired up the engine and moved out into the midnight traffic.

The ten minutes turned out to be twenty. Gregory drove north on Sixth Avenue all the way through Midtown to 57th Street and then two blocks west. He turned north on Eighth, through Columbus Circle, onto Central Park West, and into 72nd Street. He stopped outside the Dakota.

“Nice digs,” Reacher said.

“Only the best for Mr. Lane,” Gregory said, nothing in his voice.

They got out together and stood on the sidewalk and another compact man in a gray suit stepped out of the shadows and into the car and drove it away. Gregory led Reacher into the building and up in the elevator. The lobbies and the hallways were as dark and baronial as the exterior.

“You ever seen Yoko?” Reacher asked.

“No,” Gregory said.

They got out on five and Gregory led the way around a corner and an apartment door opened for them. The lobby staff must have called ahead. The door that opened was heavy oak the color of honey and the warm light that spilled out into the corridor was the color of honey, too. The apartment was a tall solid space. There was a small square foyer open to a big square living room. The living room had cool air and yellow walls and low table lights and comfortable chairs and sofas all covered in printed fabric. It was full of six men. None of them was sitting down. They were all standing up, silent. Three wore gray suits similar to Gregory’s and three were in black jeans and black nylon warm-up jackets. Reacher knew immediately they were all ex-military. Just like Gregory. They all had the look. The apartment itself had the desperate quiet feel of a command bunker far from some distant point where a battle was right then turning to shit.

All six men turned and glanced at Reacher as he stepped inside. None of them spoke. But five men then glanced at the sixth, which Reacher guessed identified the sixth man as Mr. Lane. The boss. He was half a generation older than his men. He was in a gray suit. He had gray hair, buzzed close to his scalp. He was maybe an inch above average height, and slender. His face was pale and full of worry. He was standing absolutely straight, racked with tension, with his fingertips spread and touching the top of a table that held an old-fashioned telephone and a framed photograph of a pretty woman.

“This is the witness,” Gregory said.

No reply.

“He saw the driver,” Gregory said.

The man at the table glanced down at the phone and then moved away from it, toward Reacher, looking him up and down, assessing, evaluating. He stopped a yard away and offered his hand.

“Edward Lane,” he said. “I’m very pleased to meet you, sir.” His accent was American, originally from some hardscrabble place far from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Arkansas, maybe, or rural Tennessee, but in either case overlaid by long exposure to the neutral tones of the military. Reacher said his own name and shook Lane’s hand. It was dry, not warm, not cold.

“Tell me what you saw,” Lane said.

“I saw a guy get in a car,” Reacher said. “He drove it away.”

“I need detail,” Lane said.

“Reacher is ex-U.S. Army CID,” Gregory said. “He described the Benz to perfection.”

“So describe the driver,” Lane said.

“I saw more of the car than the driver,” Reacher said.

“Where were you?”

“In a café. The car was a little north and east of me, across the width of Sixth Avenue. Maybe a twenty-degree angle, maybe ninety feet away.”

“Why were you looking at it?”

“It was badly parked. It looked out of place. I guessed it was on a fireplug.”

“It was,” Lane said. “Then what?”