Running Blind

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 can’t?”

“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.”

JODIE’S OFFICE WAS on the fortieth floor of a sixty-floor tower on Wall Street. The 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.