hands, giant battered mitts that bunched into fists the size of footballs. She wanted to see those hands again. She wanted to see them around Hobie’s throat.
She glanced around the office. The sunbeams had crawled an inch across the desk. She saw Chester Stone, inert. Marilyn, trembling. Curry, white in the face and breathing hard next to her. The guy with the shotgun, relaxed. Reacher would break him in half without even thinking about it. She saw Tony, his eyes fixed on hers. And Hobie, caressing his hook with his manicured hand, smiling at her, waiting. She turned and looked at the closed door. She imagined it bursting open with a crash and Jack Reacher striding in through it. She wanted to see that happen. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything.
“OK,” she whispered. “I’ll call him.”
Hobie nodded. “Tell him I’ll be here a few more hours. But tell him if he wants to see you again, he better come quick. Because you and I have a little date in the bathroom, about thirty minutes from now.”
She shuddered and pushed off the glass table and stood upright. Her legs were weak and her shoulders were on fire. Hobie came around and took her elbow and led her to the door. Led her over behind the reception counter.
“This is the only telephone in the place,” he said. “I don’t like telephones.”
He sat down in the chair and pressed nine with the tip of his hook. Handed the phone across to her. “Come closer, so I can hear what he says to you. Marilyn deceived me with the phone, and I’m not going to let that happen to me again.”
He made her stoop down and put her face next to his. He smelled of soap. He put his hand in his pocket and came out with the tiny revolver Tony had slipped in there. He touched it to her side. She held the phone at an angle with the earpiece upward between them. She studied the console. There was a mass of buttons. A speed-dial facility for 911. She hesitated for a second and then dialed her own home number. It rang six times. Six long, soft purrs. With each one, she willed him: be there, be there. But it was her own voice that came back to her, from her machine.
“He’s not there,” she said blankly.
Hobie smiled.
“That’s too bad,” he said.
She was stooped over next to him, numb with shock.
“He’s got my mobile,” she said suddenly. “I just remembered.”
“OK, press nine for a line.”
She dabbed the cradle and dialed nine and then her mobile number. It rang four times. Four loud urgent electronic squawks. Each one, she prayed: answer, answer, answer,
“Hello?” he said.
She breathed out.
“Hi, Jack,” she said.
“Hey, Jodie,” he said. “What’s new?”
“Where are you?”
She realized there was urgency in her voice. It made him pause.
“I’m in St. Louis, Missouri,” he said. “Just flew down. I had to go to the NPRC again, where we were before.”
She gasped. St. Louis? Her mouth went dry.
“You OK?” he asked her.
Hobie leaned across and put his mouth next to her ear.
“Tell him to come right back to New York,” he whispered. “Straight here, soon as he can.”
She nodded nervously and he pressed the gun harder against her side.
“Can you come back?” she asked. “I sort of need you here, soon as possible.”
“I’m booked on the six o’clock,” he said. “Gets me in around eight-thirty, East Coast time. Will that do?”
She could sense Hobie grinning next to her.
“Can you make it anytime sooner? Like maybe right away?”
She could hear talking in the background. Major Conrad, she guessed. She remembered his office, dark wood, worn leather, the hot Missouri sun in the window.
“Sooner?” he said. “Well, I guess so. I could be there in a couple of hours, depending on the flights. Where are you?”
“Come to the World Trade Center, south tower, eighty-eighth floor, OK?”
“Traffic will be bad. Call it two and a half hours, I’ll be there.”
“Great,” she said.
“You OK?” he asked again.
Hobie brought the gun around into her view.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I love you.”
Hobie leaned over and hit the cradle with the tip of his hook. The earpiece clicked and filled with dial tone. She put the phone down, slowly and carefully onto the console. She was shattered with shock and disappointment, numb, still stooped over the counter, one hand laid flat on the wood propping her weight, the other hand shaking in the air an inch above the phone.
“Two and a half
He laughed to himself and put the gun back in his pocket. Got out of the chair and caught the arm that was supporting her weight. She stumbled and he dragged her toward the of fice door. She caught the edge of the counter and held on tight. He hit her, backhanded with the hook. The curve caught her high on the temple and she lost her grip on the counter. Her knees gave way and she fell and he dragged her to the door by the arm. Her heels scuffed and kicked. He swung her around in front of him and straight-armed her back into the office. She sprawled on the carpet and he slammed the door.
“Back on the sofa,” he snarled.
The sunbeams were off the desk. They were inching around the floor and creeping across the table. Marilyn Stone’s splayed fingernails were vivid in their light. Jodie crawled to her hands and knees and pulled herself up on the furniture and staggered all the way back to her place alongside Curry. She put her hands back where they had been before. There was a narrow pain in her temple. It was an angry throb, hot and alien where the metal had thumped against bone. Her shoulder was twisted. The guy with the shotgun was watching her. Tony was watching her, the automatic pistol back in his hand. Reacher was far away from her, like he had been most of her life.
Hobie was back at the desk, squaring the stack of equity certificates into a pile. They made a brick four inches tall. He butted each side in turn with the hook. The heavy engraved papers slid neatly into place.
“UPS will be here soon,” he said happily. “Then the developers get their stock, and I get my money, and I’ve won again. About half an hour, probably, and then it’s all over, for me, and for you.”
Jodie realized he was talking to her alone. He had selected her as a conduit for information. Curry and the Stone couple were staring at her, not him. She looked away and gazed down through the glass at the rug on the floor. It had the same pattern as the faded old item in DeWitt’s office in Texas, but it was much smaller and much newer. Hobie left the brick of paper where it was and walked around behind the square of furniture and took the shotgun away from the guy holding it.
“Go bring me some coffee,” he said to him.
The guy nodded and walked out to the lobby. Closed the door gently behind him. The office went silent. There was just tense breathing and the faint rumble of the building underneath it. The shotgun was in Hobie’s left hand. It was pointing at the floor. Swinging gently, back and forth through a tiny arc. A loose grip. Jodie could hear the rub of metal on the skin of his hand. She saw Curry glancing around. He was checking Tony’s position. Tony had stepped back a yard. He had put himself outside the shotgun’s field of fire and he was aiming directly across it at a right angle. His automatic was raised. Jodie felt Curry testing the strength in his shoulders. She felt him moving. She saw his arms bunching. She saw him glance ahead at Tony, maybe twelve feet in front of him. She saw him glance left at Hobie, maybe eight feet to the side. She saw the sunbeams, exactly parallel with the brass edges of the table. She saw Curry push up onto his fingertips.
“No,” she breathed.
