Lee Child - The Hard Way

“I can lie with the best of them,” Reacher said. “Sadly.”

Then he shut up fast because he caught a glimpse of movement a half-mile away. The farmhouse door was opening. There was morning mist and the sun was on the other side of the house and the distance was at the outer limit of visibility but he made out four figures emerging into the light. Two big, one slightly smaller, one very small. Probably two men, a woman, and a little child. Possibly a girl.

“They’re up,” he said.

Pauling said, “I see them, but only just. Four people. The bird scarer probably woke them. Louder than a rooster. It’s the Jackson family and Taylor, right? Mommy, Daddy, Melody, and her loving uncle.”

“Must be.”

They all had things on their shoulders. Long straight poles. Comfortable for the adults, way too big for the girl.

“What are they doing?” Pauling asked.

“Those are hoes,” Reacher said. “They’re going out to the fields.”

“To dig weeds?”

“Organic farming. They can’t use herbicides.”

The tiny figures grouped together and moved north, away from the road. They dwindled to nothingness, just faint remote blurs in the mist that were more ghostly illusion than reality.

“He’s staying,” Pauling said. “Isn’t he? He must be staying. You don’t go out to hoe weeds for your sister if you’re thinking about running.”

Reacher nodded. “We’ve seen enough. The job is done. Let’s get back to London and wait for Lane.”

THEY HIT COMMUTERtraffic on the road to London. Lots of it. It seemed like for hundreds of miles England was one of two things: either London or a dormitory serving London. The city was like a gigantic sprawling magnet sucking inward. According to Reacher’s atlas the M-11 was just one of twenty or so radial arteries that fed the capital. He guessed they were all just as busy, all full of tiny flowing corpuscles that would get spat back out at the end of the day. The daily grind . He had never worked nine to five, never commuted. At times he felt profoundly grateful for that fact. This was one of them.

The stick shift was hard work in the congestion. Two hours into the ride they pulled off and got gas and he changed places with Pauling, even though he wasn’t on the paperwork and wasn’t insured to drive. It seemed like a minor transgression compared to what they were contemplating for later. He had driven in Britain before, years earlier, in a large British sedan owned by the U.S. Army. But now the roads were busier. Much busier. It seemed to him like the whole island was packed to capacity. Until he thought back to Norfolk. That county was empty. The island is unevenly packed , he thought. That was the real problem. Either full or empty. No middle ground. Which was unusual for Brits, in his experience. Normally Brits fudged and muddled like champions. The middle ground was where they lived.

They came to the M-25 beltway and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Decided to hit it for a quarter-circle counterclockwise and then head down to the West End on an easier route. But the M-25 itself was pretty much a parking lot.

“How do people stand this every day?” Pauling said.

“Houston and LA are as bad,” Reacher said.

“But it kind of explains why the Jacksons escaped.”

“I guess it does.”

And the traffic moved on slowly, circulating like water around a bathtub drain, before yielding to the inexorable pull of the city.

They came in through St. John’s Wood, where the Abbey Road studios were, past Regent’s Park, through Marylebone, past Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes had lived, through Marble Arch again, and onto Park Lane. The Hilton hotel was at the south end, near the truly world-class automotive insanity that was Hyde Park Corner. They parked in a commercial garage underground at a quarter to eleven in the morning. Maybe an hour before Lane and his guys were due to check in.

“Want lunch?” Pauling said.

“Can’t eat,” Reacher said. “I’m too knotted up.”

“So you’re human after all.”

“I feel like I’m delivering Taylor to an executioner.”

“He deserves to die.”

“I’d rather do it myself.”

“So make the offer.”

“Wouldn’t be good enough. Lane wants the partner’s name. I’m not up for torturing it out of the guy personally.”

“So walk away.”

“I can’t. I want retribution for Kate and Jade and I want the money for Hobart. No other way of getting either. And we have a deal with your Pentagon buddy. He delivered, so now I have to deliver. But all things considered I think I’ll skip lunch.”

Pauling asked, “Where do you want me?”

“In the lobby. Watching. Then go get yourself a room somewhere else. Leave me a note at the Hilton’s desk. Use the name Bayswater. I’ll take Lane to Norfolk, Lane will deal with Taylor, I’ll deal with Lane. Then I’ll come back and get you, whenever. Then we’ll go somewhere together. Bath, maybe. To the Roman spas. We’ll try to get clean again.”

They walked past an automobile showroom that was displaying brand-new models of the Mini Cooper they had been driving. They walked past discreet set-back entrances to blocks of mansion flats. They went up a short flight of concrete steps to the Park Lane Hilton’s lobby. Pauling detoured to a distant group of armchairs and Reacher walked to the desk. He stood in line. Watched the clerks. They were busy with their phones and their computers. There were printers and Xerox machines behind them on credenzas. Above the Xerox machines was a brass plaque that said: By statute some documents may not be photocopied. Like banknotes , Reacher thought. They needed a law, because modern Xerox machines were just too good. Above the credenzas was a line of clocks set to world time, from Tokyo to Los Angeles. He checked New York’s against the time in his head. Spot on. Then the person in front of him finished up. He moved to the head of the line.

“Edward Lane’s party,” he said. “Have they checked in yet?”

The clerk tapped his keyboard. “Not yet, sir.”

“I’m waiting for them. When they get here, tell them I’m across the lobby.”

“Your name, sir?”

“Taylor,” Reacher said. He walked away, clear of the busiest areas, and found a quiet spot. He was going to be counting eight hundred thousand dollars in cash and he didn’t want an audience. He dumped himself down in one of a group of four armchairs. He knew from long experience that nobody would try to join him. Nobody ever did. He radiated subliminal stay away signals and sane people obeyed them. Already a nearby family was watching him warily. Two kids and a mother, camped out in the next group of chairs, presumably off of an early flight and waiting for their room to be ready. The mother looked tired and the kids looked fractious. She had unpacked half their stuff, trying to keep them amused. Toys, coloring books, battered teddy bears, a doll missing an arm, battery-driven video games. He could hear the mother’s halfhearted suggestions of how to fill the time: Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that? Why don’t you draw a picture of something you’re going to see ? Like therapy.

He turned away and watched the door. People came in, a constant stream. Some weary and travel-stained, some busy and bustling. Some with mountains of luggage, some with briefcases only. All kinds of nationalities. In the next group of chairs one kid threw a bear at the other kid’s head. It missed and skidded across the tile and hit Reacher’s foot. He leaned down and picked it up. All the stuffing was out of it. He tossed it back. Heard the mother suggesting some other pointless activity: Why don’t you do this ? He thought: Why don’t you shut the hell up and sit still like normal human beings ?