Lee Child - Never Go Back

Reacher didn’t answer. He was still listening. At first, to nothing. Just silence. Then: more footsteps in the corridor. Two people. One following the other.

Sullivan said, ‘Major?’

Then: door sounds. The same door. The same crisp metallic click of the handle, the same slick grind of the hinges, the same suck of the silicone seal. Then a pause, and the same sounds all over again, in the reverse sequence, as the door closed. And then: one set of footsteps, walking away.

So now Turner was in the next-door room with her lawyer, and the corridor was empty.

Showtime .

Reacher said, ‘I have a serious problem with my cell, counsellor. You really need to come see it.’

EIGHTEEN

SULLIVAN ASKED, ‘WHAT kind of a problem do you have with your cell?’ She said it a little wearily, but not impatiently. She wasn’t dismissing the matter out of hand. Defence lawyers dealt with all kinds of bullshit. Suspects were always looking for an edge or an angle. For the inevitable appeal. Any imagined slight or unfairness had to be investigated and evaluated. Reacher knew that. He knew how the game was played.

He said, ‘I don’t want to put something in your mind. I don’t want to pre-empt your honest opinion. I need you to see this for yourself.’

‘Now?’

‘Why not?’

‘OK,’ she said, a little wearily.

She stood up. She stepped over to the door. She pressed the buzzer.

She left her briefcase on the table.

Reacher stood up and waited behind her.

One minute.

Two.

Then the narrow glass window in the door darkened, and the door opened up, and the duty captain said, ‘All done, counsellor?’

Sullivan said, ‘No, he has a problem with his cell.’

The tall guy looked at Reacher, with a quizzical expression on his face, part resigned, part surprised, as if to say, Really? You? This old shit?

But he said, ‘OK, whatever. Let’s go take a look.’

Like he had to. He knew how the game was played.

Reacher led the way. Sullivan went next. The tall guy brought up the rear. They walked in single file, through the dog-legs, left and then right, to the cell door, which was unlocked and unbolted, because Reacher wasn’t in it. Reacher pulled it open and held it for the others. The tall guy smiled and took the door from him and gestured: after you . He was dumb, but not brain damaged.

Reacher went in first. Then came Sullivan. Then the tall guy. Reacher stopped and pointed.

‘Over there,’ he said. ‘In the crack.’

Sullivan said, ‘What crack?’

‘In the floor, near the wall. Under the window.’

Sullivan stepped forward. The tall guy stopped short of the bed. Sullivan said, ‘I don’t see a crack.’

Reacher said, ‘There’s something in it. It’s wriggling.’

Sullivan froze. The tall guy leaned in. Human nature. Reacher leaned the other way, just a subtle drift, but the tall guy’s mass was moving one way, and Reacher’s the other. Reacher shoved the guy, below his shoulder, on his upper arm, hard, like a swimmer pushes off the end of the pool, and the guy went down over the bed like he was falling off a pair of stilts. Sullivan spun around and Reacher stepped to the door, and out to the corridor, and closed the door and bolted it.

Then he ran back, awkward in his laceless boots, past the room with Sullivan’s briefcase in it, to the next room. He stood well back and looked in through the narrow rectangular window.

And saw Susan Turner for the first time.

She was worth the wait, he thought.

Totally worth it.

She was sitting on the right-hand side of the table. She was wearing army combat uniform, with all the hook-and-loop tapes and tags pulled off, and tan combat boots, with no laces. She was an inch or two above average height. She was small-boned and slender, with dark hair pulled back, and tanned skin, and deep brown eyes. Her face was showing mostly fatigue, but there was spirit in it too, and intelligence, and a kind of detached, ironic mischief.

Spectacular, in Reacher’s considered opinion.

Totally worth the wait, he thought again.

Her lawyer was on the left side of the table, a full bird colonel in Class A uniform. Grey hair and a lined face. Middle-aged and medium-sized.

A man.

A white man.

Heads .

Score three .

Reacher moved on, all the way to the quarantine door between himself and the rear lobby. There was no inside handle. Just a buzzer button, like the conference rooms. He kicked off his boots, and then he hit the button, urgently, over and over again. Less than five seconds later the door opened. The lobby clerk stood there, the handle in his hand. His keys were on a squared-off metal screw ring, like a small piece of mountaineering equipment, secured in a belt loop.

Reacher said, breathless, ‘Your captain is having some kind of a seizure. Or a heart attack. He’s thrashing around. You need to check him out. Right now, soldier.’

Command presence. Much prized by the military. The guy hesitated less than a second and then stepped into the inner corridor. The door started to swing shut behind him. Reacher nudged his left boot into the gap, and then turned to follow. He ran bootless and quiet behind the guy and then overtook him and wrenched open the first cell door he came to. Unlocked and unbolted, because it was empty.

But not for long.

‘In here,’ he said.

The lobby guy shouldered in, fast and urgent, and Reacher grabbed his keys and tore them right off his pants, belt loop and all, and then he shoved him hard and sent him sprawling, and closed the door and shot the bolts.

He breathed in, and he breathed out.

Now came the hard part.

NINETEEN

REACHER PADDED BOOTLESS back to the room where Sullivan’s briefcase still rested on the table. He pushed the door all the way open and darted in and grabbed the case and then he turned back fast and caught the door again before it slammed shut behind him. He knelt on the floor in the corridor and opened the case. He ignored all the files and all the legal paperwork and rooted around until he found a car key, which he put in his pants pocket. Then he found the wallet. He took out the army ID. Sullivan’s first name was Helen. He put the ID in his shirt pocket. He took out her money and put it in his other pants pocket. He found a pen and tore off a small triangle of paper from a Xeroxed form and he wrote Dear Helen, IOU $30 , and he signed it Jack Reacher . He put the slip of paper in the money slot, and he closed the wallet, and he closed the briefcase.

Then he stood up, with the briefcase in his hand.

He breathed in, and breathed out.

Showtime .

He moved on, twelve feet, to the next room, and he glanced in through the narrow window. Susan Turner was talking, patiently, marshalling arguments, using her hands, separating one point from another. Her lawyer was listening, head cocked, writing notes on a yellow legal pad. His briefcase was open on the table, pushed to the side. It was emptier than Sullivan’s, but the guy’s pockets were fuller. His uniform was not well tailored. It was baggy and generous. The nameplate on the pocket flap said Temple.

Reacher moved on again, all the way to the quarantine door between him and the lobby. He replaced his left boot with Sullivan’s car key, so the door stayed unlatched, and he put his boots back on, slack and laceless. Then he headed back to Turner’s interview room, and stopped outside the door.

He breathed in, and he breathed out.

Then he opened the door, fast and easy, and stepped inside the room. He turned and bent and placed Sullivan’s briefcase against the jamb, to stop the door from closing again. He turned back, and saw both Turner and her lawyer looking up at him, nothing much in the lawyer’s face, but what looked like dawning recognition in Turner’s.