Lee Child: Jack Reacher's Rules

The novels of Lee Child are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Lee Child

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

DELACORTE PRESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Jack Reacher,of no fixed address, is a former major in the U.S. Military Police. Since leaving the army, the authorities have not been able to locate his whereabouts, although his name mysteriously crops up from time to time in connection with investigations into murders, terrorist threats, and other breaches of the law.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction by LEE CHILD

Be Prepared

Breaking and Entering

Choose Your Weapons

The United States Army Military Police

The Rules of Coffee

Conquer Your Fear

Confronting Death

Cracking Codes and Passwords

Dogs

Fighting

Fighting Tips

Food

First Aid

Getting Mad

Hand-to-Hand Combat

How to Shake Hands

The Wimbledon Cup

Hitchhiking—the Rules

How to Extract Information

Know How to Find Your Way Around a City

West Point

Keep on the Move

Codes Used by the Military Police

Lessons Learned in the Military

Live off the Grid

Hogan’s Alley

On Walking Through a Thirty-Inch Doorway

How to Tell if They’re Lying

Learn to Read Their Body Language

Man Walks into a Bar—the Rules

A Medley of Military Acronyms

Respect Your Opponent

Noticing Stuff

The Twelve Signs of a Suicide Bomber

The U.S. Army Military Police Code of Ethics

Reacher’s Moral Code

Military Police Training

How to Open a Locked Iron Gate with a Chrysler

The Science of … The Perfect Shot

Personal Grooming

The Pentagon

Why It’s Not Smart to Have a Phone

Potential Aliases for Use When Booking a Motel

Use Your Wits—Psychology

Miranda

The Science of … Burning Down a Building

Sleep

Knowing the Time

Travel Light

What to Do in the Face of:

When to Speak

Blind Blake

How to Win the Battle

How to Win the War

Man’s Toys

Women

How to Sleep in a $350-a-Night Hotel Room for $50

How to Leave Town

INTRODUCTION

If you’ve been paying attention long enough, you know one thing for sure: the defining human characteristic is tribalism. We all slice and dice the world’s population into ever smaller fragments until we find a group where we feel comfortable, where we feel we truly belong.

And having arrived there, we make rules governing that group’s behavior. We want a reliable guide to how to act, we want to build bulwarks against outsiders, we want to provide a secure mechanism for belonging, we want to reassure ourselves that continuing membership is guaranteed if only we conform.

Some rules are official. We form clubs and societies and associations and give them procedures and bylaws more complex than those of government bodies.

Some rules are only semiofficial. Hit on your friend’s best girl? No way. Rat out an accomplice? Not going to happen. Break a strike? You’d rather die.

Some rules are just slogans, consoling and emboldening. Maybe as a kid, your gang—part of your street in part of your city in your country in the big, bewildering world—was, like kids are, told by your parents and teachers to be scared of strangers. No, you said. Strangers should be told to be scared of us.

Jack Reacher has always followed his own rules. He grew up in a fractured way, six months here, three months there, always moving, never stable, never belonging. Then he was a soldier, but too wise to buy into all the nonsense. He obeyed only the rules that made sense to him. Then he was cut loose and became a true outsider, profoundly comfortable with solitude. Does he have a tribe? You bet. He’s human. But in his case he kept on slicing and dicing until he got all the way down to a tribe with just one member—himself. But that tribe still needs rules, to guide, and embolden, and simplify, and reassure.

What follows are some of them.

LEE CHILD

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

Never count on anything except surprise and unpredictability and danger.

Ring doorbells with your knuckles or elbows to avoid leaving fingerprints.

Sit in diners or bars with your back to the wall so you cannot be surprised from behind.

Keep all exits in view.

Walk up the edge of stairs to minimize the chances of loud creaks. Stairs squeak at their centers where they’re weakest.

Go to bed fully clothed so you are always ready for action.

Never look through peepholes in doors. Someone could be on the other side, waiting to see the glass darken and shoot you in the eye.

“We’re making an omelette here … we’re going to have to break some eggs.”

“Optimism is good. Blind faith is not.”

Always lift a door handle upward. If a door

squeaks, it’s because it’s dropped on its hinges.

Upward pressure helps.

Climb through a hole feetfirst. If there’s an ax or a bullet waiting, better to take it in the legs than in the head.

If someone’s likely to shoot at you, plant yourself in the middle of a restaurant full of innocent people.

“Most guys who don’t check new equipment are still alive, but by no means all of them.”