CHAPTER 72

CARTER GROOM WAS facing the door on the far side of the table. He looked up just like the bartender had but Kowalski and Burke moved a lot faster than the farmers. They spun around and stared. Reacher stepped the rest of the way into the room and closed the door gently behind him. Stood completely still.

"We meet again," he said, just to break the silence.

"You've got some nerve," Groom said.

The room was decorated in the same style as the foyer. Low ceiling beams, dark varnished wood, ornate wall sconces, thousands of bra.s.s ornaments, a wall-to-wall carpet patterned in a riot of red and gold swirls. Reacher moved toward the fireplace. Tapped the toes of his shoes against the edge of the hearth to shed some mud. Took a heavy iron poker from a hook and used the end of it to sc.r.a.pe dirt off his heels. Then he hung the poker back up and flapped at the bottom of his pant legs with his hands. Altogether he spent more than a minute cleaning up, with his back turned, but he was watching a clear convex reflection of the table in a bright copper bucket that held kindling sticks. And n.o.body was moving. The three guys were just sitting there, waiting. Smart enough not to start anything in a public place.

"The situation has changed," Reacher said. He moved on, toward the west-facing window. It had open drapes and a sliding storm pane on the inside and a regular wooden frame on the outside that would open like a door. He pulled out a chair from the table nearest to it and sat down six feet away from the three guys, four feet and two panes of gla.s.s away from his rifle.

"Changed how?" Burke said.

"There was no kidnap,' Reacher said. "It was faked. Kate and Taylor are an item. They fell in love, they eloped. Because they wanted to be together. That was all. And they took Jade with them, obviously. But they had to dress the whole thing up, because Lane is a psychopath where his marriages are concerned. Among other things."

"Kate's alive?" Groom said.

Reacher nodded. "Jade too."

"Where?"

"Somewhere in the States, I guess."

"So why is Taylor here?"

"He wants a showdown with Lane on his own turf."

"He's going to get one."

Reacher shook his head. "I'm here to tell you that's a bad idea. He's on a farm, and it's surrounded by ditches too deep to drive through. So you'd be going in on foot. And he's got a lot of help there. He's got eight of his old SAS buddies with him, and his brother-in-law was a kind of Green Beret for the Brits, and he's brought in six of his guys, too. They've got Claymores on a hundred-yard perimeter and heavy machine guns in every window. They've got night vision and grenade launchers."

"They can't possibly use them. Not here. This is England, not Lebanon."

"He's prepared to use them. Believe it. But actually he won't have to. Because four of the SAS guys are snipers. They've got PSGls. Heckler and Koch sniper rifles, from the black market in Belgium. They'll drop you all three hundred yards out. With their eyes shut. Seven rounds, game over. They're miles from anywhere. n.o.body will hear. And if they do, they won't care. This is the back of beyond. Farm country. Somebody's always shooting something. Foxes, road signs, burglars, each other."

The room went quiet. Kowalski picked up his drink and sipped. Then Burke did, and then Groom. Kowalski was left-handed. Burke and Groom were right-handed. Reacher said, "So your best play is to just forget it and go home now. Lane is going to die. There's no doubt about that. But there's no reason why you should die with him. This isn't your fight. This is all about Lane's ego. It's between him and Kate and Taylor. Don't get yourselves killed for that kind of bulls.h.i.t."

Burke said, "We can't just walk away."

"You walked away in Africa," Reacher said. "You left Hobart and Knight behind, to save the unit. So now you should leave Lane behind, to save yourselves. You can't win here. Taylor's good. You know that. And his buddies are just as good. You're outnumbered more than two to one. Which is totally upside down. You know that, too. A situation like this, you need to outnumber the defenders. You're going to get your a.s.ses kicked."

n.o.body spoke.

"You should go home," Reacher said again. "Hook up somewhere else. Maybe start up on your own."

Groom asked, "Are you with Taylor?"

Reacher nodded. "And I'm good with a rifle. Back in the day, I won the Marine sniper trophy. I showed up in army green and I beat all of you miserable jarheads hands down. So maybe I'll grab one of the PSGs. Maybe I'll drop you all six hundred yards out, just for the fun of it. Or eight hundred, or a thousand."

Silence in the room. No sound at all, except the shift and crackle of logs in the fire. Reacher looked straight at Kowalski.

"Five, seven, one, three," he lied. "That's the combination for Lane's closet door. There's still more than nine million dollars behind it. In cash. You should go get it, right now."

No response.

"Walk away," Reacher said. "Live to fight another day."

"They stole all that money," Burke said.

"Alimony. Easier than asking for it straight up. Asking for alimony is what got Anne Lane killed. Kate found that out."

"That was a kidnap."

Reacher shook his head. "Knight offed her. For Lane, because Anne wanted out. That's why you all abandoned Knight in Africa. Lane was covering his a.s.s. He sacrificed Hobart too, because he was in the same OP."

"That's bulls.h.i.t."

"I found Hobart. Knight told him all about it. While they were busy getting their hands and feet cut off."

Silence.

Reacher said, "Don't get killed for this kind of c.r.a.p."

Burke looked at Groom. Groom looked at Burke. They both looked at Kowalski. There was a long pause. Then Burke looked up.

"OK," he said. "I guess we could sit this one out."

Groom nodded. Kowalski shrugged. Reacher stood up.

"Smart decision," he said. He moved toward the door. Stopped at the hearth and kicked his shoes against the stone again. Asked, "Where are Lane and the others?"

Quiet for a beat. Then Groom said, "There was no room here. They went up to Norwich. The city. Some hotel up there. The guy here recommended it."

Reacher nodded. "And when is he locking and loading?"

Another pause.

"Dawn the day after tomorrow."

"What did he buy?"

"Submachine guns. MP5Ks, one each plus two spares. Ammunition, night vision, flashlights, various bits and pieces."

"Are you going to call him? As soon as I'm gone?"

"No," Burke said. "He's not the kind of guy you call with this kind of news.

"OK," Reacher said. Then he stepped fast to his left and lifted the poker off its hook. Reversed it in his hands and spun around in one smooth movement and swung it hard and level and caught Carter Groom across the upper right arm, hard and straight and level, halfway between the elbow and the shoulder. The poker was a heavy iron bar and Reacher was a strong and angry man and Groom's humerus bone shattered like a piece of dropped china. Groom opened his mouth wide in sudden pain and shock but before any kind of a scream got out Reacher had sidestepped two paces to his left and broken Kowalski's left arm with a vicious backhanded blow. Kowalski was left-handed. Burke and Groom were right-handed. Reacher knocked Kowalski out of his way with his hip and wound up like an old newsreel of Mickey Mantle getting ready to hit one out of the park and smashed Burke across the right wrist with a line drive and pulverized every bone in there. Then he breathed out and turned away and stepped to the fireplace and put the poker back on its hook.

"Just making sure," he said. "You didn't entirely convince me with your answers. Especially the one about Lane's hotel."

Then he walked out of the saloon bar and closed the door quietly behind him. It was exactly eleven thirty-one in the evening, according to the clock in his head. At exactly eleven thirty-two by the platinum Rolex on his left wrist Edward Lane closed the Toyota's rear door on nine Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine guns, sixty thirty-round magazines of 9mm Parabellums, seven sets of night-vision goggles, ten flashlights, six rolls of duct tape, and two long coils of rope. Then John Gregory started the engine. Behind him on the rear bench were Perez and Addison, quiet and pensive. Lane climbed into the front pa.s.senger seat and Gregory turned the truck around and took off west. Standard Special Forces doctrine called for dawn a.s.saults, but it also called for the insertion of a small advance force for a lengthy period of lying-up and prior surveillance. At exactly eleven thirty-three by the clock on her night table Jade woke up, confused and hot and feverish with time-zone confusion. She sat up in bed for a spell, dazed and quiet. Then she swung her feet to the floor. Crossed the room slowly and pulled back her curtain. It was dark outside. And she could go outside in the dark. Taylor had said so. She could go visit the barns, and find the animals she knew had to be there. Reacher retrieved his G-36 from under the saloon bar window at eleven thirty-four precisely and set out to walk back on the road, which he figured would make the return trip faster. Five miles, level ground, no hills, decent pace. He antic.i.p.ated about seventy-five minutes total. He was tired, but content. Fairly satisfied. Three trigger fingers out of action, the opposing force degraded to about fifty-seven percent of its original capacity, the odds evened up to an attractive four-on-four, some useful intelligence gained. Groom's ingrained loyalty had led him to lie about Lane's hotel and probably about the timing of the planned attack, too.

Dawn the day after tomorrow was almost certainly a clumsy and hasty camouflaging of the truth, which therefore in reality would be simply dawn tomorrow. But the shopping list had probably been right. Night vision was a no-brainer for night-time surveillance and MP5Ks were pretty much what a guy like Lane would want for a subsequent fast and mobile a.s.sault. Light, accurate, reliable, familiar, available.

Forewarned is forearmed, Reacher thought. Not bad for an evening's work. He walked on, energy in his stride, a grim smile on his face.

Alone in the dark. Invincible. That feeling lasted exactly an hour and a quarter. It ended just after he walked the length of the Grange Farm driveway and saw the dark and silent bulk of the house looming in front of him. He had called the pa.s.sword at least half a dozen separate times. At first quietly, and then louder.

Canaries, canaries, canaries.

Canaries, canaries, canaries.

He had gotten no response at all.

CHAPTER 73

WITHOUT CONSCIOUS THOUGHT Reacher raised his rifle to the ready position. Stock nestled high against his right shoulder, safety off, right index finger inside the trigger guard, barrel just a degree or two below the horizontal. Long years of training, absorbed right down at the cellular level, permanently written in his DNA. No point in having a weapon at all unless it's ready for instant use, his instructors had screamed.

He stood absolutely still. Listened hard. Heard nothing at all. He moved his head left. Listened. Nothing. He moved his head right. Nothing.

He tried the pa.s.sword one more time, soft and low: Canaries.

He heard no reply.

Lane, he thought.

He wasn't surprised. Surprise was strictly for amateurs, and Reacher was a professional. He wasn't upset, either. He had learned a long time ago that the only way to keep fear and panic at bay was to concentrate ruthlessly on the job at hand. So he spent no time thinking about Lauren Pauling or Kate Lane. Or Jackson or Taylor. Or Jade. No time at all. He just walked backward and to his left. Pre-programmed. Like a machine. Silently. Away from the house. Making himself smaller as a target and improving his angle of view. He checked the windows. They were all dark. Just a faint red glow from the kitchen. The remains of the fire. The front door was closed. Near it was the faint shape of the Mini Cooper, cold and gray in the dark. It looked odd. Canted down at the front, like it was kneeling.

He walked toward it through the dark, slow and stealthy. Knelt down on the driver's side near the front fender and felt for the tire. It wasn't there. There were torn shreds of rubber and a vicious curled length of bead wire. And shards of plastic from the shattered wheel well lining. That was all. He shuffled quietly around the tiny hood to the other side. Same situation. The wheel had its alloy rim on the ground.

A front-wheel-drive car, comprehensively disabled. Both wheels. One had not been enough. A single tire can be changed. Two submachine gun bursts had been necessary. Twice the risk of detection. Although in Reacher's experience an MP5 set to fire bursts of three sounded more innocent than a rifle firing single shots. A single gunshot was unmistakable. It was a singularity. It was a precise pinpoint of noise. An MP5 was rated to fire 900 rounds a minute. Fifteen every second. Which meant that a burst of three lasted a fifth of a second. Not quite a singularity. Altogether a different sound. Like a brief blurred purr instead. Like a distant motorcycle heard waiting at a light.

Lane, he thought again.

But when?

Seventy-five minutes previously he had been five miles away. Audibility decays according to the inverse square law. Twice the distance, the sound gets four times as quiet. Four times the distance, sixteen times as quiet. He had heard nothing. He was sure of that. Across land as flat and featureless and in night air as thick and damp as Norfolk's he would have expected to hear MP5 bursts a couple of miles away. Therefore Lane had been gone at least thirty minutes. Maybe more.

He stood still and listened hard. Heard nothing. Headed for the front door. It was closed but unlocked. He dropped his left hand off the rifle and turned the handle. Pushed the door open. Raised the rifle. The house was dark. It felt empty. He checked the kitchen. It was warm. Dull red embers in the hearth. Jade's drawings were still on the kitchen chair where he had left them. Pauling's purse was still where he had dumped it after taking the Maglite. There were empty mugs of tea all over the place. Dishes in the sink. The room looked exactly like he had left it, except there were no people in it.

He switched on the flashlight and clamped it in his left palm under the rifle's barrel. Used it to check all the other ground floor rooms. A formal dining room, empty, cold, dark, unused. n.o.body in it. A formal parlour, furnished like the Bishop's Arms saloon bar, still and quiet. n.o.body in it. A powder room, a coat closet, the mud room. All empty.

He crept up the stairs. The first room he came to was clearly Jade's. He saw the green seersucker sundress folded on a chair. Drawings on the floor. The battered old toys that had been missing from the Dakota were all arrayed in a line along the bed, leaning on the wall. A one-eyed bear with the fur worn down to its backing, sitting up. A doll, one eye open and one eye closed, a lipstick effect inexpertly applied with a red marker pen. The bed had been slept in. The pillow was dented and the sheets had been thrown back.

No sign of the child herself.

The next room belonged to the Jacksons. That was clear. There was a vanity table cluttered with British cosmetic brands and tortoisesh.e.l.l hairbrushes and matching hand mirrors. There were framed photographs of a girl that wasn't Jade. Melody, Reacher guessed. On the back wall there was a bed with a high headboard and freestanding armoires in matching dark veneers, full of clothes, men's and women's. There was a backhoe catalogue on one of the night tables. Tony Jackson's bedtime reading.

No sign of Jackson himself.

The next room was Kate's and Taylor's. An old queen bed, an oak night table. Austere, undecorated, like a guest room. The photograph was propped on a dresser. Kate and Jade, together. The original print. No frame. The two faces glowed in the Maglite's beam. Love, captured on film. There was an empty tote bag. Kate's luggage. No sign of the money. Just three empty leather duffels piled together in a corner. Reacher had carried one of them himself, down in the Dakota's elevator to the black BMW, with Burke restless at his side.

He moved on, looking for box rooms or bathrooms. Then he stopped, halfway along the upstairs hallway.

Because there was blood on the floor.

It was a small thin stain, a foot long, curved, like flung paint. Not a puddle. Not neat. It was dynamic, suggestive of rapid movement.

Reacher stepped back to the head of the stairs. Sniffed the air. There was a faint smell of gunpowder. He sighted down the hallway with the Maglite beam and saw an open bathroom door at the far end. A smashed tile on the back wall, at chest height. A neat burst, contained by a single six-inch by six-inch ceramic square. A running target, a raised gun, a squeezed trigger, three shots, a through-and-through flesh wound, probably to an upper arm. A short shooter, otherwise the downward angle would be more p.r.o.nounced. The smashed tile would be lower. Perez, probably. Perez, firing maybe the first of at least seven bursts that night. This one, inside the house. Then the two Mini Cooper tires. Then four Land Rover tires, for sure. A four-wheel-drive vehicle would need all four tires taken out for a cautious man to be satisfied. A desperate driver might get somewhere on two.

Seven submachine gun bursts in the dead of night. Maybe more. Forty or more minutes ago. People here have phones, Jackson had said. Some of them even know how to use them. But they hadn't used them. That was for sure. The Norwich cops would have arrived in less than forty minutes. Thirty miles, empty roads, lights and sirens, they could have done it in twenty-five or less. So n.o.body had called. Because of the MP5's other-worldly rate of fire. Machine guns on TV or in the movies were generally old-fashioned and much slower. In order to be properly convincing. So forty or more minutes ago people wouldn't have known what they were hearing. Just a random series of inexplicable blurred purrs, like sewing machines. Like jamming your tongue on the roof of your mouth and blowing. If they had heard anything at all.

So, Reacher thought. At least one wounded and the cavalry ain't coming.

He eased down the stairs and back out into the night.

He circled the house, clockwise. The barns were distant and dark and quiet. The old Land Rover was collapsed on its rims, as he had been certain it would be. Four blown tires. He walked straight past it and stopped against the south gable wall. Turned the Maglite off and stared down the driveway into the darkness.

How had it happened?

He trusted Pauling because he knew her and he trusted Taylor and Jackson even without knowing them. Three professionals. Experience, savvy, plenty of active brain cells. Tired, but functioning. A long perilous approach from the intruders' point of view. No contest. He should have been looking at four riddled bodies and a wrecked rental car. Right about then Jackson should have been firing up the backhoe. Pauling should have been cracking cans of beer and Kate should have been making toast and heating beans.

So why weren't they?

Distraction, he figured. As ever, the answer was in Jade's pictures. The animals in the barns. She's not sleeping great, Kate had said. The jet lag has screwed her up. Reacher pictured the child waking, maybe around midnight, getting out of bed, running out of the house into the imagined safety of the darkness, four adults scrambling after her, confusion, panic, a search, unseen watchers rising from the gra.s.sland and moving in. Lane, blasting up the driveway in the rented Toyota SUV. Taylor and Jackson and Pauling holding their fire in case they hit each other or Kate or Jade.

Lane, headlights on now, jamming to a stop.

Lane, headlights on now, recognizing his own stepdaughter.

His own wife.