Lee Child - One Shot

Helen said nothing.

“I asked him,” Reacher said. “When I saw him in the hospital. I asked him how he would have done it, theoretically. Like a recon briefing. So he thought about it. He knows the area. He said he would have parked on the highway. Behind the library. He said he would have buzzed the window down and emptied the mag .”

Helen said nothing.

“But he didn’t empty the mag,” Reacher said. “He stopped shooting after six. Just stopped. Coldly and calmly. Which makes the whole dynamic different. This wasn’t a crazy man sent out to terrorize the city on a dare. He wasn’t pushed into it just for the fun of the carnage. This wasn’t random, Helen. It wasn’t psychotic. There was a specific, limited, coherent purpose behind it. Which reverses the focus. We should have seen it. We should have seen that this whole thing is about the victims, not the shooter. They weren’t just unlucky people in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“They were targets?” Helen said.

“Carefully chosen,” Reacher said. “And as soon as they were safely down, Barr packed up and left. With four bullets remaining. A random psycho episode wouldn’t have panned out like that. He’d have kept on pulling the trigger until he clicked on empty. So this wasn’t a spree. It was an assassination.”

Silence in the office.

“We need to look at who the victims were,” Reacher said. “And we need to look at who wanted them dead. That’s what’s going to lead us to where we need to be.”

Helen Rodin didn’t move.

“And we need to do it real fast,” Reacher said. “Because I don’t have much time and we already wasted the best part of three days looking at everything ass-backward.”

The tired thirty-year-old doctor on the sixth floor of the county hospital was finishing up his afternoon rounds. He had left James Barr for last. Partly because he wasn’t expecting any dramatic change in his condition, and partly because he didn’t care anyway. Looking after sick thieves and swindlers was bad enough, but looking after a mass murderer was absurd. Doubly absurd, because straight after Barr was on his feet he was going to be laid back down on a gurney and some other doctor was going to come in and kill him.

But ethical obligations are hard to ignore. As is habit. As is duty, and routine, and structure. So the doctor went into Barr’s room and picked up his chart. Took out his pen. Glanced at the machines. Glanced at the patient. He was awake. His eyes were moving.

Alert , the doctor wrote.

“Happy?” he asked.

“Not really,” Barr said.

Responsive , the doctor wrote.

“Tough shit,” he said, and put his pen away.

Barr’s right handcuff was rattling gently against the cot rail. His right hand itself was trembling and slightly cupped and the thumb and index finger were in constant motion, like he was trying to roll an imaginary ball of wax into a perfect sphere.

“Stop that,” the doctor said.

“Stop what?”

“Your hand.”

“I can’t.”

“Is that new?”

“A year or two.”

“Not just since you woke up?”

“No.”

The doctor looked at the chart. Age: Forty-one .

“Do you drink?” he asked.

“Not really,” Barr said. “A sip sometimes, to help me sleep.”

The doctor disbelieved him automatically and flipped through the chart to the tox screen and the liver function test. But the tox screen was clear and the liver function was healthy. Not a drinker. Not an alcoholic. Not even close .

“Have you seen your own physician recently?” he asked.

“I don’t have insurance,” Barr said.

“Stiffness in your arms and legs?”

“A little.”

“Does your other hand do that, too?”

“Sometimes.”

The doctor took out his pen again and scribbled on the bottom of the chart: Observed tremor in right hand, not post-traumatic, primary diagnosis alcoholism unlikely, stiffness in limbs present, possible early-onset PA ?

“What’s wrong with me?” Barr asked.

“Shut up,” the doctor said. Then, duty done, he clipped the chart back on the foot of the bed and walked out of the room.

Helen Rodin searched through the evidence cartons and came out with the formal specification of charges against James Barr. Among many other technical violations of the law, the State of Indiana had listed five counts of homicide in the first degree with aggravating circumstances, and as due process required had gone on to list the five alleged victims by name, sex, age, address, and occupation. Helen scanned the page, ran her fingers down the columns for address and occupation.

“I don’t see any obvious connections,” she said.

“I didn’t mean they were all targets,” Reacher said. “Probably only one of them was. Two, at most. The others were window dressing. An assassination disguised as a spree. That’s my guess.”

“I’ll get to work,” she said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

He used the fire stairs instead of the elevator and got back to the garage unseen. He hustled up the ramp and across the street and under the highway again. The invisible man. Life in the shadows . He smiled. He stopped.

He decided to go look for a pay phone.

He found one on the side wall of a small grocery called Martha’s, two blocks north of the cheap clothing store he had used. The booth faced a wide alley that was used as a narrow parking lot. There were six slanted spaces full of six cars. Beyond them, a high brick wall topped with broken glass. The alley turned ninety degrees behind the grocery. He guessed it turned again somewhere and let out on the next block south.

Safe enough , he thought.

He took Emerson’s torn card out of his pocket. Chose the cell number. Dialed the phone. Leaned his shoulder against the wall and watched both ends of the alley at once and listened to the purr of the ring tone in his ear.

“Yes?” Emerson said.

“Guess who?” Reacher said.

“Reacher?”

“You named that tune in one.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m still in town.”

“Where?”

“Not far away.”

“You know we’re looking for you, right?”

“I heard.”

“So you need to turn yourself in.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then we’ll come find you,” Emerson said.

“Think you can?”

“It’ll be easy.”

“You know a guy called Franklin?”

“Sure I do.”

“Ask him how easy it’ll be.”

“That was different. You could have been anywhere.”

“You got the motor court staked out?”

There was a pause. Emerson said nothing.

“Keep your people there,” Reacher said. “Maybe I’ll be back. Or on the other hand, maybe I won’t.”

“We’ll find you.”

“Not a chance. You’re not good enough.”

“Maybe we’re tracing this call.”

“I’ll save you the trouble. I’m outside a grocery called Martha’s.”

“You should come in from the cold.”

“I’ll trade,” Reacher said. “Find out who placed the cone in the parking garage and then I’ll think about coming in.”

“Barr placed the cone.”

“You know he didn’t. His van isn’t on the tapes.”

“So he used another vehicle.”

“He doesn’t have another vehicle.”

“So he borrowed one.”

“From a friend?” Reacher said. “Maybe. Or maybe the friend placed the cone for him. Either way, you find that friend, and I’ll think about coming in to talk to you.”

“There are hundreds of cars on those tapes.”

“You’ve got the resources,” Reacher said.

“I don’t trade,” Emerson said.