Lee Child - One Shot

“He was a military cop,” Chenko said in English. “Did you know that?”

Linsky glanced at Chenko. Chenko rarely spoke English in the house. He had a perfect American accent, and sometimes Linsky thought he was ashamed of it.

“That doesn’t necessarily impress me,” Linsky said in Russian.

“Or me,” the Zec said. “But it’s a factor we must weigh in the balance.”

“Silencing him now would draw attention,” Linsky said. “Wouldn’t it?”

“It would depend on how it was done.”

“How many ways are there?”

“We could use the redheaded girl again,” the Zec said.

“She would be no use against the soldier. He’s a giant, and almost certainly extensively trained in self-defense.”

“But he already has an established issue with her. Several people know she tried to set him up for a beating. Perhaps she could be found severely injured. If she was, the soldier would be the obvious prime suspect. We could let the police department silence him for us.”

“She would know who attacked her,” Vladimir said. “She would know it wasn’t the soldier.”

The Zec nodded appreciatively. Linsky watched him. He was accustomed to the Zec’s methods. The Zec liked to tease solutions out of people, like Socrates of old.

“Then perhaps she should be left unable to tell anyone anything,” the Zec said.

“Dead?”

“We’ve always found that the safest way, haven’t we?”

“But it’s possible she has many enemies,” Vladimir said. “Not just him. Maybe she’s a big-time prick-teaser.”

“Then we should firm up the link. Possibly she should be found somewhere suggestive. Maybe he invited her out to renew their acquaintance.”

“In his hotel?”

“No, outside his hotel, I think. But close by. Where she can be discovered by someone other than the soldier himself. Someone who can call the police while the soldier is still asleep. That way he’s a sitting duck.”

“Why would her body be outside his hotel?”

“Evidently he hit her and she staggered away and collapsed before she got very far.”

“The Metropole Palace,” Linsky said. “That’s where he is.”

“When?” Chenko asked.

“Whenever you like,” the Zec said.

The Astros beat the Cardinals 10-7 after a limp defensive performance by both franchises. Plenty of cheap hits, plenty of errors. A bad way to win, and a worse way to lose. Reacher had stopped paying attention halfway through. He had started thinking about Eileen Hutton instead. She was part of his mosaic. He had seen her once in the States before the Gulf War, just briefly across a crowded courtroom, just long enough to register her head-turning quality, and he had assumed he would never see her again, which he figured was a pity. But then she had showed up in Saudi as part of the long, ponderous Desert Shield buildup. Reacher had been there pretty much from the start, as a recently demoted captain. The first stage of any clean-sheet foreign deployment always resembled gang warfare between the MPs and the troops they were sent out with, but after six weeks or so the situation usually settled down some, and Desert Shield wasn’t any different. After six weeks there was a structure in place, and in terms of military law enforcement, a structure demanded in-country personnel all the way up from jailers to judges, and Hutton had shown up as one of the prosecutors they shipped in. Reacher had assumed it was volunteer duty for her, which he was happy about, because that made it likely she was unmarried.

She was unmarried. First time their paths crossed, he checked her left hand and saw no ring. Then he checked her collar and saw a major’s oak leaves. That would make it a challenge, he figured, for a recently demoted captain. Then he checked her eyes and saw that the challenge would be worth it. Her eyes were blue and full of intelligence and mischief. And promise, he figured. And adventure. He had just turned thirty-one years old, and he was up for anything.

The desert heat helped. Most of the time the temperature was above a hundred and twenty degrees, and apart from regular gas-attack practices, standard on-post dress devolved down to shorts and sleeveless undershirts. And in Reacher’s experience the close proximity of hot and nearly naked men and women always led somewhere good. Better than serving out November in Minnesota, that was for damn sure.

The initial approach had promised to be tricky, given the disparity in rank. And when it came to it he fumbled it slightly, and was saved only because she was just as up for it as he was, and wasn’t afraid to let it show. After that it had been as smooth as silk, three long months. Good times. Then new orders had come through, like they always did eventually. He hadn’t even said goodbye to her. Didn’t get the chance. Never saw her again, either.

I’ll see her again tomorrow , he thought.

He stayed in the bar until ESPN started recycling the highlights it had already shown once. Then he settled up his tab and stepped out to the sidewalk, into the yellow glare of the streetlights. He decided he wouldn’t go back to the Metropole Palace. He decided it was time for a change. No real reason. Just his normal restless instinct. Keep moving. Never stay in one place too long . And the Metropole was a gloomy old pile. Unpleasant, even by his undemanding standards. He decided to try the motor court instead. The one he had seen on his way to the auto parts store. The one next to the barbershop. Any Style $7 . Maybe he could get a haircut before Hutton blew into town.

Chenko left the Zec’s house at midnight. He took Vladimir with him. If the redhead was to be beaten to death, then Vladimir would have to do it. It had to look right, forensically. Chenko was too small to inflict the kind of battering that an enraged six-foot-five, two-hundred-fifty-pound ex-soldier might be provoked to. But Vladimir was a different matter. Vladimir might well be able to do the job with a single blow, which might be convincing on the postmortem slab. A refusal, an objection, a sexual taunt, a big man might lash out once in frustration, a little harder than he intended.

They were both familiar with the girl. They had met her before, because of her connection to Jeb Oliver. They had even all worked together once. They knew where she lived, which was in a rented garden apartment that nestled on a barren patch of land in the shadow of the state highway, where it first rose on its stilts, south and west of downtown. And they knew that she lived there alone.

Reacher walked a long aimless three-block circle before approaching the motor court. He kept his own footsteps light and listened hard for the gritty crunch of a shadow behind him. He heard nothing. Saw nothing. He was alone.

The motor court was practically an antique. At one time it must have been the latest thing and consequently fairly upmarket. But since then the relentless march of time and fashion had left it behind. It was well maintained but not updated. It was exactly the kind of place he liked.

He roused the clerk and paid cash for one night only. He used the name Don Heffner, who had played second base and hit.261 during the Yankees’ lean year of 1934. The clerk gave him a big brass key and pointed him down the row to room number eight. The room was faded and a little damp. The counterpane on the bed and the drapes at the window looked original. So did the bathroom. But everything worked and the door locked tight.

He took a short shower and folded his pants and his shirt very carefully and put them flat under the mattress. That was as close as he ever got to ironing. They would look OK in the morning. He would shave and shower very carefully and go to the barbershop after breakfast. He didn’t want to devalue whatever memories Hutton might have retained. Assuming she had retained any at all.