Lee Child - One Shot

“Outside the Metropole Palace Hotel.”

“Is that where Reacher is staying?”

“Not according to the register.”

“So is he a suspect or not?”

“Right now he looks pretty damn good for it.”

“So when are you going to bring him in?”

“As soon as I find him.”

“I’ll call Helen,” Alex Rodin said. “She’ll know where he is.”

Rodin lied to his daughter. He told her that Bellantonio needed to see Reacher to correct a possible misunderstanding about part of the prosecution’s evidence.

“What part?” Helen asked.

“Just something they discussed. Probably nothing important, but I’m playing this very cautiously. Don’t want to hand you grounds for an appeal.”

The traffic cone , Helen thought.

“He’s on his way to the airport,” she said.

“Why?”

“To say hello to Eileen Hutton.”

“They know each other?”

“Apparently.”

“That’s unethical.”

“To know each other?”

“To influence her testimony.”

“I’m sure he won’t do that.”

“When will he be back?”

“After lunch, I think.”

“OK,” Rodin said. “It’ll keep.”

But it didn’t keep, of course. Emerson left for the airport immediately. He had met Reacher twice face-to-face and could pick him out of a crowd. Donna Bianca went with him. They went in together through a restricted area and found a security office that looked out over the whole arrivals hall through one-way glass. They scanned the waiting faces carefully. No sign of Reacher. Not here yet . So they settled down to wait.

Reacher didn’t go to the airport. He knew better. Senior military personnel spend a lot of time flying small aircraft, either fixed wing or rotary, and they don’t like it. Outside of combat, more military personnel die in plane crashes than from any other single cause. Therefore, given a choice, a smart Brigadier General like Eileen Hutton wouldn’t ride a puddle jumper down from Indianapolis. She would be happy enough with a big jet out of Washington National, but she wouldn’t contemplate a twin-prop for the final leg of her journey. No way. She would rent a car instead.

So Reacher walked south and east to the library. Asked the subdued woman at the desk where the Yellow Pages were stored. He went where she pointed and hauled the book out onto a table. Opened it to H for Hotels. Started looking. Almost certainly some JAG Corps office grunt had done the equivalent thing the previous day, but remotely, probably online. Hutton would have told him to book her a room. He would have been anxious to please, so he would have turned first to the street map and found the courthouse and the road in from the north. Then he would have chosen a decent place convenient for both. Somewhere with parking, for the rental car. Probably a chain, with an established government rate accessible by a code number.

The Marriott Suites , Reacher thought. That’s where she’ll be headed . Off the highway, south toward town, an obvious left turn east, and there it was, three blocks north of the courthouse, an easy walk, breakfast included. The office grunt had probably printed out driving directions from the internet and clipped them to her itinerary. Anxious to please. Hutton had that effect on people.

He memorized the Marriott’s number and put the book away. Then he walked out to the lobby and dialed the pay phone.

“I want to confirm a reservation,” he said.

“Name?”

“Hutton.”

“Yes, we’ve got that. Tonight only, a suite.”

“Thank you,” Reacher said, and put the phone down.

She would take an early flight out of D.C. After two decades in uniform she would be up at five, in a cab at six, boarding at seven. She would be in Indianapolis by nine, latest. Out of the Hertz lot by nine-thirty. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive. She would arrive at noon. In about an hour.

He stepped out of the lobby and looped through the plaza and headed north and east through a thin crowd of people, past the far side of the recruiting office, past the back of the courthouse. He found the Marriott easily enough and took a corner table in its coffee shop and settled down to wait.

Helen Rodin called Rosemary Barr at work. She wasn’t there. The receptionist sounded a little embarrassed about it. So Helen tried Rosemary’s home number, and got her after the second ring.

“Did they let you go?” she asked.

“Unpaid leave,” Rosemary said. “I volunteered for it. Everyone was acting awkward around me.”

“That’s awful.”

“It’s human nature. I need to make a plan. I might have to move.”

“I need a list of your brother’s friends,” Helen said.

“He doesn’t have any. The true test of friendship is adversity, isn’t it? And nobody’s visited him. Nobody’s even tried. Nobody’s called me to ask how he is.”

“I meant before,” Helen said. “I need to know who he saw, who he hung out with, who knew him well. Especially anyone new.”

“There wasn’t anyone new,” Rosemary said. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“What about old?”

“Have you got a big piece of paper?”

“I’ve got a whole yellow pad.”

“Well, you aren’t going to need it. A matchbook cover would do it. James is a very self-sufficient person.”

“He must have buddies.”

“A couple, I guess,” Rosemary said. “There’s a guy called Mike from the neighborhood. They talk about lawns and baseball, you know, guy stuff.”

Mike , Helen wrote. Guy stuff . “Anyone else?”

There was a long pause.

“Someone called Charlie,” Rosemary said.

“Tell me about Charlie,” Helen said.

“I don’t know much about him. I never really met him.”

“How long has James known him?”

“Years.”

“Including the time you lived there?”

“He never came around when I was in. I only ever saw him once. He was leaving as I was coming in. I said, Who was that? James said, That was Charlie, like he was an old pal.”

“What does he look like?”

“He’s small. He’s got weird hair. Like a black toilet brush.”

“Is he local?”

“I guess so.”

“What was their point of contact?”

Another long pause.

“Guns,” Rosemary said. “They shared an interest.”

Charlie , Helen wrote. Guns .

Donna Bianca spent some time on her cell phone and mapped out the flight schedules between D.C. and Indianapolis. She knew the onward connecting flights left on the hour and took thirty-five minutes. She figured a person with a courthouse appointment at four o’clock wouldn’t aim to arrive on anything later than the two thirty-five. Which meant leaving Indianapolis at two, which meant getting in there at about one-thirty, latest, to allow for the walk between gates. Which meant leaving Washington National at eleven-thirty or twelve, latest. Which wasn’t possible. The last direct flight from National to Indianapolis was at nine-thirty. There was a morning cluster and an evening cluster. Nothing in between.

“She’ll come in on the twelve thirty-five,” she said.

Emerson checked his watch. Quarter to twelve .

“Which means Reacher will be here soon,” he said.

At ten to twelve a courier arrived at Helen Rodin’s building with six large cardboard cartons containing the defense’s copies of the prosecution’s evidence. The discovery process, mandated by the rules of due process. By the Bill of Rights, as interpreted. The courier called from the lobby and Helen told him to come on up. He had to make two trips with his handcart. He stacked the boxes in the empty secretarial pen. Helen signed for them and he left. Then she opened them. There was a mass of paperwork and dozens of photographs. And eleven new VHS cassettes. They had labels with numbers neatly printed on them that referred to a notarized sheet that described them as faithful and complete copies of the parking garage’s security tapes, made by an independent third-party contractor. Helen took them all out and stacked them separately. She would have to take them home and use her own VCR to look at them. She didn’t have a VCR in the office. Or a television set.