"I have a license,' Dee Marie said.

"Maybe we could even rent a wheelchair."

"That would be good," Hobart said. "A ground floor room, and a wheelchair. Easier for you. Dee."

"Maybe an efficiency," Pauling said. "With a little kitchen. For the cooking."

"I can't afford it," Dee Marie said.

The room went quiet and Reacher stepped out the front door and checked the hallway. Checked the stairwell. Nothing was happening. He came back inside and pulled the door as far closed as it would go. Turned left in the entry and walked past the bathroom to the bedroom. It was a small s.p.a.ce nearly filled by a queen bed. He guessed Hobart slept there, because the night table was piled with tubes of antiseptic creams and bottles of over-the-counter painkillers. The bed was high. He pictured Dee Marie hoisting her brother on her back, turning around, reversing toward the bed, dumping him down on the mattress. He pictured her straightening him out, tucking him in. Then he pictured her heading for another night on the sofa.

The bedroom window had a wood frame and the gla.s.s was streaked with soot. There were faded drapes, three-quarters open. Ornaments on the sill, and a colour photograph of a Marine Lance Corporal. Vinnie, Reacher guessed. The dead husband. Blown to bits on a Fallujah roadside. Killed instantly, or not. He had the bill of his dress cap low on his brow and the colours in the picture were vivid and smoothed and airbrushed. An off-post photographer, Reacher guessed. Two prints for about a day's pay, two cardboard mailers included, one for the mother and one for the wife or the girlfriend. There were similar pictures of Reacher somewhere in the world. For a spell every time he got promoted he would have a picture taken and send it to his mother. She never displayed them, because he wasn't smiling. Reacher never smiled for the camera.

He stepped close to the window and glanced north. Traffic flowed away from him like a river. He glanced south. Watched the traffic coming toward him.

And saw a black Range Rover slowing and pulling in to the curb.

License plate: OSC 19.

Reacher spun around and was out of the bedroom in three long strides. Back in the living room after three more.

"They're here," he said. "Now."

Silence for a split second.

Then Pauling said, "s.h.i.t."

"What do we do?" Dee Marie said.

"Bathroom," Reacher said. "All of you. Now."

He stepped over to the sofa and grabbed the front of Hobart's denim shirt and lifted him into the air. Carried him to the bathroom and laid him gently in the tub. Dee Marie and Pauling crowded in after him. Reacher pushed his way past them and back out to the hallway.

"You can't be out there," Pauling said.

"I have to be," Reacher said. "Or they'll search the whole place."

"They shouldn't find you here."

"Lock the door," Reacher said. "Sit tight and keep quiet."

He stood in the hallway and heard a click from the bathroom door and a second later the intercom buzzed from the street. He waited a beat and hit the b.u.t.ton and said, "Yes?" Heard amplified traffic noise and then a voice. Impossible to tell whose it was.

It said: "VA visiting nurse service."

Reacher smiled. Nice, he thought.

He hit the b.u.t.ton again and said, "Come on up."

Then he walked back to the living room and sat down on the sofa to wait.

CHAPTER 46

REACHER HEARD LOUD creaking from the staircase. Three people, he guessed. He heard them make the turn and start up toward four. Heard them stop at the head of the stairs, surprised by the broken door. Then he heard the door open. There was a quiet metallic groan from a damaged hinge and after that there was nothing but the sound of footsteps in the foyer. First into the living room was Perez, the tiny Spanish guy.

Then Addison, with the knife scar above his eye.

Then Edward Lane himself.

Perez stepped left and stopped dead and Addison stepped right and stopped dead and Lane moved into the centre of the small static arc and stood still and stared.

"The h.e.l.l are you doing here?" he asked.

"I beat you to it," Reacher said.

"How?"

"Like I told you. I used to do this for a living. I could give you guys a mirror on a stick and I'd still be hours ahead of you."

"So where is Hobart?"

"Not here."

"It was you who broke down the door?"

"I didn't have a key."

"Where is he?"

"In the hospital."

"Bulls.h.i.t. We just checked."

"Not here. In Birmingham, Alabama, or Nashville, Tennessee."

"How do you figure that?"

"He needs specialized care. Saint Vincent's recommended one of those big university hospitals down south. They gave him literature." Readier pointed at the small table and Edward Lane broke ranks with his men and stepped over to pick up the shiny brochures. He flipped through both of them and asked, "Which one?"

Reacher said, "It doesn't matter which one."

"The h.e.l.l it doesn't," Lane said.

"Hobart didn't kidnap Kate."

"You think?"

"No, I know."

"How?"

"You should have bought more information than just his address. You should have asked why he was at Saint Vincent's in the first place."

"We did. They said malaria. He was admitted for IV chloroquine."

"And?"

"And nothing. A guy just home from Africa can expect to have malaria."

"You should have gotten the whole story."

"Which is?"

Reacher said, "First, he was strapped down to a bed getting that IV chloroquine at the exact time that Kate was taken. And second, he has a pre-existing condition.'

"What condition?"

Reacher shifted his gaze and looked straight at Perez and Addison.

"He's a quadruple amputee," he said. "No hands, no feet, can't walk, can't drive, can't hold a gun or dial a telephone."

n.o.body spoke.

"It happened in prison," Reacher said. "Back in Burkina Faso. The new regime had a little fun. Once a year. On his birthday. Left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand. With a machete. Chop, chop, chop, chop."

n.o.body spoke.

"After you all ran away and left him behind," Reacher said.

No reaction. No guilt, no remorse.

No anger.

Just nothing.

"You weren't there," Lane said. "You don't know how it was."

"But I know how it is now," Reacher said. "Hobart's not the guy you're looking for. He's not physically capable."

"You sure?"

"Beyond certain."

"I still want to find him," Lane said.

"Why?"

No answer. Checkmate. Lane couldn't say why without going all the way back and admitting what he had asked Knight to do for him five years previously, and he couldn't do that without blowing his cover in front of his men.

"So we're back at square one," he said. "You know who it wasn't. Great job, Major. You're making real progress here."

"Not quite square one," Reacher said.

"How?"

"I'm close," Reacher said. "I'll give you the guy."

"When?"

"When you give me the money."

"What money?"

"You offered me a million bucks."

"To find my wife. It's too late now."

"OK," Reacher said. "So I won't give you the guy. I'll give you a mirror on a stick instead."

Lane said, "Give me the guy."

"Then meet my price."

"You're that kind of a man?"

"Only a bulls.h.i.tter doesn't have a price."

"High price."

"I'm worth it."

"I could have it beaten out of you."

"You couldn't," Reacher said. He hadn't moved at all. He was sitting back on the sofa, relaxed, sprawled, arms resting easy along the back cushions, legs spread, six-five, two-fifty a picture of supreme physical self-confidence. "You try that s.h.i.t and I'll bend you over and I'll use Addison's head to hammer Perez up your a.s.s like a nail."

"I don't like threats."

"This from the guy who said he'd have me blinded?"

"I was upset."