Lee Child - Jack Reacher's Rules

Shake or squeeze. Your choice.

THE WIMBLEDON CUP

WHAT

The Marine Sniper School competition, the Marine Corps 1,000-yard invitational, is the U.S. High-Powered Long-Range Championship known as the Wimbledon Cup.

WHEN

Started in the 1870s, the competition’s name may originate from the fact that the British National Rifle Association met in Wimbledon, London, in the late nineteenth century. It is now held in August every year.

WHERE

Camp Perry, Ohio

WHO

The annual competition is open to shooters outside the Marines, who compete by invitation. It is a prone competition with a reputation for going to shoot-offs to decide the winner, who is regarded as the best shot in the world. Jack Reacher won the competition in 1988.

HOW

The Seven Characteristics of a Good Sniper: excellent marksman, good woodsman, emotionally stable, keenly observant, aware of his surroundings, good with a map, patient.

“It takes an awareness of the environment and total concentration at the moment you fire the shot. You have to be aware of the wind, which has a tremendous impact at 1,000 yards. You have to be aware of the sun, whether it goes behind a cloud or not. Then at the last millisecond you have to develop total concentration.”

Major Jim Land, Marine Corps (retired)

“A modern army scores one enemy fatality per 15,000 rounds expended by its infantry. For specialist snipers the result is better. Way better. Twelve and a half thousand times better—a sniper scores one enemy fatality for every 1.2 rounds.”

“Gas, grass, or ass—the price of hitchhiking?”

Set up base on a significant interchange.

Stand with one foot on the shoulder of the highway, and one in the traffic lane.

Stick out your thumb.

Stand in a way that suggests need but not desperation.

Try to look friendly (especially if you are overwhelmingly large and/or have an obvious facial wound, such as a broken nose).

Smile.

“As a mode of transportation, hitching rides was dying out. Drivers were less generous, more afraid. Because who knew what kind of a psycho you were …”

Be wary of: the strong smell of weed or bourbon.

Drivers can be more compassionate at midnight than at midday.

If you get a lift, give a destination. Saying “anywhere” sounds like you’re a drifter who wants to go home with them.

>>WHY DRIVERS STOP TO GIVE LIFTS

Because people used to give them lifts.

Because they’re charitable and kind.

Because they’re lonely.

Because they’re so drunk they need someone else to drive the car.

Because they think you look like their type.

Because they’ve just committed a crime and need an alibi.

“Hitchhiking usually carried with it the promise of random personal encounters and conversations made more intense by the certainty that their durations would necessarily be limited.”

>>HOW TO TURN A CAR OVER

Let the tires and suspension do the work.

Rock the car hard. Then bounce it until it’s coming up for air at about forty-five degrees.

Hook hands under the footboard and heave the car all the way onto its side.

Then keep the momentum going and tip it onto its roof.

“It’s all about free will. It’s all about making choices. You can tell me now, or you can tell me after I break your legs.”

The hardest part of any adversarial conversation is the beginning. An early answer is a good sign. Answering becomes a habit.

Ask once, ask twice if you must, but don’t ask three times.

First chat about shared interests to build up trust; then it’s harder for them to start lying.

“Be skeptical but not too skeptical. Too much skepticism leads to paranoia and paralysis.”

If the night shift won’t help you, maybe the day shift will. (Night workers are always tougher—less contact with the public.)

Ask a librarian—they’re nice people, they’ll tell you things if you ask them.

“Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

Benjamin Franklin

Resort to threatening physical violence only as a last resort.

“Either you walk out of here by yourself, or you’ll be carried out in a bucket.”

“Every city has a cusp, where the good part of town turns bad.”

FINDING AN AUTO-PARTS STORE

In any city the auto-parts store is always on the same strip as the tire stores and the auto dealers and the lube shops. Which in any city is always a wide new strip near a highway cloverleaf.

FINDING THE MORGUE

Morgues are usually close to hospitals, well hidden from the public. They are often not signposted at all, or else labeled something anodyne, such as Special Services. But they’re always accessible. Meat wagons have to be able to roll in and out unobstructed.

FINDING THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE

Turn off the main drag—public offices are always in the back somewhere where land is cheaper—and check the side streets. Look for a shortwave antenna on the roof and a lot big enough for a handful of cruisers.

FINDING A WESTERN UNION OFFICE

Stand on a street corner and ask yourself, Is it more likely to be left or right now? Then turn left or right as appropriate, and pretty soon you are in the right neighborhood, and pretty soon you’ll find it.

If in doubt, turn left.

“The bad stuff seems to migrate. Law enforcement never really wins. It just shoves stuff around, a block here, a block there.”

WEST POINT

WHAT

Established in 1802, the United States Military Academy at West Point educates and trains about a thousand select cadets every year to become officers. After four years, most graduates leave with a commission as second lieutenant.

WHERE

Fifty miles north of New York City, the academy campus occupies 16,000 acres on a commanding plateau on the west bank of the Hudson River.