Running Blind

Reacher shrugged. “I guess so. It was my job to make them trust me. I had to get all kinds of intimate details from them.”

“You had to do that kind of thing with many women?”

“There were hundreds of cases. I handled a couple dozen, I guess, before they set up special units to deal with them all.”

“So give me a name of another woman whose case you handled.”

Reacher shrugged again and scanned back through a succession of offices in hot climates, cold climates, big desks, small desks, sun outside the window, cloud outside, hurt and outraged women stammering out the details of their betrayal.

“Rita Scimeca,” he said. “She would be a random example.”

Blake paused and Lamarr reached down to the floor and came up with a thick file from her briefcase. She slid it sideways. Blake opened it and turned pages. Traced down a long list with a thick finger and nodded.

“OK,” he said. “What happened with Ms. Scimeca?”

“She was Lieutenant Scimeca,” Reacher said. “ Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The guys called it hazing, she called it gang rape.”

“And what was the outcome?”

“She won her case. Three men spent time in military prison and were dishonorably discharged.”

“And what happened to Lieutenant Scimeca?”

Reacher shrugged again. “At first she was happy enough. She felt vindicated. Then she felt the Army had been ruined for her. So she mustered out.”

“Where is she now?”

“I have no idea.”

“Suppose you saw her again someplace? Suppose you were in some town somewhere and you saw her in a store or a restaurant? What would she do?”

“I have no idea. She’d probably say hello, I guess. Maybe we’d talk awhile, have a drink or something.”

“She’d be pleased to see you?”

“Pleased enough, I guess.”

“Because she would remember you as a nice guy?”

Reacher nodded. “It’s a hell of an ordeal. Not just the event itself, but the process afterward, too. So the investigator has to build up a bond. The investigator has to be a friend and a supporter.”

“So the victim becomes your friend?”

“If you do it right, yes.”

“What would happen if you knocked on Lieutenant Scimeca’s door?”

“I don’t know where she lives.”

“Suppose you did. Would she let you in?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would she recognize you?”

“Probably.”

“And she’d remember you as a friend?”

“I guess.”

“So you knock on her door, she’d let you in, right? She’d open up the door and see this old friend of hers, so she’d let you right in, offer you coffee or something. Talk a while, catch up on old times.”

“Maybe,” Reacher said. “Probably.”

Blake nodded and stopped talking. Lamarr put her hand on his arm and he bent to listen as she whispered in his ear. He nodded again and turned to Deerfield and whispered in turn. Deerfield glanced at Cozo. The three agents from Quantico sat back as he did so, just an imperceptible movement, but with enough body language in it to say OK, we’re interested. Cozo stared back at Deerfield in alarm. Deerfield leaned forward, staring straight through his glasses at Reacher.

“This is a very confusing situation,” he said.

Reacher said nothing back. Just sat and waited.

“Exactly what happened at the restaurant?” Deerfield asked.

“Nothing happened,” Reacher said.

Deerfield shook his head. “You were under surveillance. My people have been following you for a week. Special Agents Poulton and Lamarr joined them tonight. They saw the whole thing.”

Reacher stared at him. “You’ve been following me for a week?”

Deerfield nodded. “Eight days, actually.”

“Why?”

“We’ll get to that later.”

Lamarr stirred and reached down again to her briefcase. She pulled out another file. Opened it and took out a sheaf of papers. There were four or five sheets clipped together. They were covered in dense type. She smiled icily at Reacher and reversed the sheets and slid them across the table to him. The air caught them and riffed them apart. The clip dragged on the wood and stopped them exactly in front of him. In them Reacher was referred to as the subject. They were a list of everything he had done and everywhere he had been in the previous eight days. They were complete to the last second. And they were accurate to the last detail. Reacher glanced from them to Lamarr’s smiling face and nodded.

“Well, FBI tails are obviously pretty good,” he said. “I never noticed.”

There was silence.

“So what happened in the restaurant?” Deerfield asked again.

Reacher paused. Honesty is the best policy, he thought. He scoped it out. Swallowed. Then he nodded toward Blake and Lamarr and Poulton. “These law school buffs would call it imperfect necessity, I guess. I committed a small crime to stop a bigger one happening. ”

“You were acting alone?” Cozo asked.

Reacher nodded. “Yes, I was.”

“So what was don’t start a turf war with us all about?”

“I wanted it to look convincing. I wanted Petrosian to take it seriously, whoever the hell he is. Like he was dealing with another organization.”

Deerfield leaned all the way over the table and retrieved Lamarr’s surveillance log. He reversed it and riffed through it.

“This shows no contact with anybody at all except Ms. Jodie Jacob. She’s not running protection rackets. What about the phone log?”

“You’re tapping my phone?” Reacher asked.

Deerfield nodded. “We’ve been through your garbage, too.”

“Phone log is clear,” Poulton said. “He spoke to nobody except Ms. Jacob. He lives a quiet life.”

“That right, Reacher?” Deerfield asked. “You live a quiet life?”

“Usually,” Reacher said.

“So you were acting alone,” Deerfield said. “Just a concerned citizen. No contact with gangsters, no instructions by phone.”

He turned to Cozo, a question in his eyes. “You comfortable with that, James?”

Cozo shrugged and nodded. “I’ll have to be, I guess.”

“Concerned citizen, right, Reacher?” Deerfield said.

Reacher nodded. Said nothing.

“Can you prove that to us?” Deerfield asked.

Reacher shrugged. “I could have taken their guns. If I was connected, I would have. But I didn’t.”

“No, you left them in the Dumpster.”

“I disabled them first.”

“With grit in the mechanisms. Why did you do that?”

“So nobody could find them and use them.”

Deerfield nodded. “A concerned citizen. You saw an injustice, you wanted to set it straight.”

Reacher nodded back. “I guess.”