Running Blind (11 page)

"And it's still the same?"

He nodded. "Institutions have long memories. That stuff is like yesterday. Never forgive, never forget."

"Even though women are in danger?"

He shrugged. "Nobody ever said institutional thinking is rational."

"So they really need somebody?"

"If they want to get anywhere."

"But why you?"

"Lots of reasons. I was involved with a couple of the cases, they could find me, I was senior enough to know where to look for things, senior enough that the current generation probably still owes me a few favors."

She nodded. "So put it all together, they probably are serious."

He said nothing.

"So what are we going to do?"

He paused.

"We could think laterally," he said into the silence.

"How?"

"You could come with me."

She shook her head. "They wouldn't let me come with you. And I can't, anyway. Could be weeks, right? I have to work. The partnership decision is coming up."

He nodded. "We could do it another way."

"OK, how?"

"I could go take Petrosian out."

She stared at him. Said nothing.

"No more threat," he said. "Like trumping their ace."

She turned her stare to the ceiling, and then she shook her head again, slowly.

"We have a thing at the firm," she said. "We call it the so what else rule. Suppose we've got some bankrupt guy we're looking after. Sometimes we dig around and find he's got some funds stashed away that he's not telling us about. He's hiding them from us. He's cheating. First thing we do, we say so what else. What else is he doing? What else has he got?"

"So?"

"So what are they really doing here? Maybe this is not about the women at all. Maybe this is about Petrosian. He's presumably a smart, slippery guy. Maybe there's nothing to pin on him. No evidence, no witnesses. So maybe Cozo is using Blake and Lamarr to get you to get Petrosian. They profiled you, right? Psychologically? They know how you think. They know how you'll react. They know if they use Petrosian to threaten me, your very first thought will be to go get Petrosian. Then he's off the street without a trial, which they probably couldn't win anyway. And nothing is traceable back to the Bureau. Maybe they're using you as an assassin. Like a guided missile or something. They wind you up, and off you go."

He said nothing.

"Or maybe it's something else," she said. "This guy killing these women sounds pretty smart too, right? No evidence anywhere? Sounds like it's going to be a difficult case to prove. So maybe the idea is you eliminate him. There might not be enough proof to satisfy the courts, but there might be enough to satisfy you. In which case you fix him, on behalf of the women you knew. Job done, cheap and quick, nothing traceable back. They're using you like a magic bullet. They fire it here in New York, and it hits home wherever and whenever."

Reacher was silent.

"Maybe you were never a suspect at all," she said. "Maybe they weren't looking for a killer. Maybe they were looking for somebody who would kill a. killer."

There was silence in the room. Outside, the street sounds of early morning were starting up. It was dark gray dawn, and traffic was building.

"Could be both things," Reacher said. "Petrosian and this other guy."

"They're smart people," Jodie said.

He nodded. "They sure as hell are."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. All I know is I can't go to Quantico and leave you here alone in the same city as Petrosian. I just can't do that."

"But maybe they're not serious. Would the FBI really do something like that?"

"You're going around in a circle. The answer is, we just don't know. And that's the whole point. That's the effect they wanted. Just not knowing is enough, isn't it?"

"And if you don't go?"

"Then I stay here and guard you every minute of every day until we get fed up with it to the point where I go after Petrosian anyway, irrespective of whether they were kidding in the first place or not."

"And if you do go?"

"Then they keep me on the ball with the threat against you. And in their opinion on the ball means what? Can I stop after I find the guy? Or do they make me go all the way and rub him out?"

"Smart people," she said again.

"Why didn't they just ask me straight?"

"They can't just ask you. It would be a hundred percent illegal. And you mustn't do it, anyway."

"I cant?"

"No, not Petrosian or the killer. You mustn't do either thing they want."

"Why not?"

"Because then they own you, Reacher. Two vigilante homicides, with their knowledge! Right under their noses? The Bureau would own you, the whole rest of your life."

He leaned his hands on the window frame and stared at the street below.

"You're in a hell of a spot," she said. "We both are."

He said nothing.

"So what are you going to do?" she asked again.

"I'm going to think," he said. "I've got until eight o'clock."

She nodded. "Think carefully."

Jodie went back to work. The partnership track beckoned. Reacher sat alone in her apartment and thought hard for thirty minutes, and then he was on the phone for twenty. Blake had said maybe there are people who still owe you favors. Then at five minutes to eight he called the number Lamarr had given him. She answered, first ring.

"I'm in," he said. "I'm not happy about it, but I'll do it."

There was a brief pause. He imagined the crooked teeth, revealed in a smile.

"Go home and pack a bag," she said. "I'll pick you up in two hours exactly."

"No, I'm going to see Jodie. I'll meet you at the airport."

"We're not going by plane."

"We're not?"

"No, I never fly. We're driving."

"To Virginia? How long will that take?"

"Five, six hours."

"Six hours? In a car with you? Shit, I'm not doing that."

"You're doing what you're told, Reacher. Garrison, in two hours."

Garrison's office was on the fortieth floor of a sixty-floor tower on Wall Street, he lobby had twenty-four-hour security and Reacher had a pass from Jodie's firm that let him through, day or night. She was alone at her desk, reviewing morning information from the markets in London. "You OK?" he asked her. "Tired," she said. "You should go back home."

"Right, like I'm really going to sleep."

He moved to the window and looked out at a sliver of lightening sky. "Relax," he said. "There's nothing to worry about."

She made no reply.

"I decided what to do," he said.

She shook her head. "Well, don't tell me about it. I don't need to know."

"It'll work out. I promise."

She sat still for a second, and then she joined him at the window. Nuzzled into his chest and held him tight, her cheek against his shirt. "Take care," she said.

"I'll take care," he said. "Don't worry about it."

"Don't do anything stupid."

"Don't worry about it," he said again.

She turned her face up and they kissed. He kept it going, long and hard, figuring the feeling was going to have to last him into the foreseeable future.

Jodie drove faster than usual and was back at his house ten minutes before Lamarr's two hours were up. He took his folding toothbrush from the bathroom and clipped it into his inside pocket. He bolted the basement door and turned the thermostat down. Turned all the faucets off hard and locked the front door. Unplugged the phone in the den and went outside through the kitchen.

He walked to the end of the yard through the trees and looked down at the river. It was gray and sluggish, lined with morning mist like a quilt. On the opposite bank, the leaves were starting to turn, shading from tired green to brown and pale orange. The buildings of West Point were barely visible.

The sun was coming over the ridge of his roof, but it was watery, with no warmth in it. He walked back to the house and skirted the garage and came out on his driveway. Hunched into his coat and walked out to the street. He didn't look back at the house. Out of sight, out of mind. That was the way he wanted it. He crossed the shoulder and leaned on his mailbox, watching the road, waiting.

Lamarr arrived exactly on time in a new Buick Park Avenue with shined paint and Virginia plates. She was alone and looked small in it. She eased to a stop and pressed a button and the trunk lid opened. There was a chrome supercharged label on the lip. Reacher closed the trunk again and opened the passenger door and slid inside.

"Where's your bag?" she asked.

"I don't have a bag," he said.

She looked blank for a second. Then she looked away from him like she was dealing with a social difficulty and eased away down the street. She paused at the first junction, unsure.

"What's the best way south?" she asked.

"On a plane," he said.

She looked away again and made a left, away from the river. Then another, which set her heading north on Route 9.

"I'll pick up I-84 in Fishkill," she said. "Go west to the Thruway, south to the Palisades, pick up the Garden State."

He was silent. She glanced at him.

"Whatever," he said.

"Just making conversation."

"No need."

"You're not being very cooperative."

He shrugged. "You told me you wanted my help with the Army. Not with the basic geography of the United States."

She raised her eyebrows and made a shape with her mouth like she was disappointed, but not surprised. He looked away and watched the scenery from his window. It was warm in the car. She had the heater on high. He leaned over and turned his side down by five degrees.

"Too hot," he said.

She made no comment. Just drove on in silence. I-84 took them across the Hudson River and through Newburgh. Then she turned south on the Thruway and squirmed back in her seat, like she was settling in for the trip.

"You never fly?" he asked.

"I used to, years ago," she said. "But I can't now."

"Why not?"

"Phobia," she said simply. "I'm terrified, is all."

"You carrying your gun?" he asked.

She lifted a hand from the wheel and pulled back the flap of her jacket. He saw the straps of a shoulder holster, stiff and brown and shiny, curving next to her breast.

"Would you use it?"

"Of course, if I had to."

"Then you're dumb to be scared of flying. Driving a car and getting in gunfights are a million times more likely to kill you."

She nodded. "I guess I understand that, statistically."

"So your fear is irrational," he said.

"I guess," she said.

There was silence. Just the hum of the motor.

"The Bureau got many irrational agents?" he asked.

She made no reply. Just reddened slightly under the pallor. He sat in the silence, watching the road reel in ahead. Then he started to feel bad for riding her. She was under pressure, from more than one direction.

"I'm sorry about your sister," he said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, I know you're worried about her."

She kept her eyes on the road. "Blake tell you that? While I was making the coffee?"

"He mentioned it."

"She's my stepsister, actually," she said. "And any worrying I do about her situation is strictly professional, OK?"