Running Blind

Alison glanced at her. “I don’t really know. I’m not sure there is any middle ground. Either you swallow it, or it goes public in a big way.”

“Did you look for the middle ground?”

She shook her head. “I’m the living proof. I just went ballistic. There was no middle ground there. At least, I couldn’t see any.”

“Who was your guy?” Reacher asked.

“A colonel called Gascoigne,” she said. “He was always full of shit about coming to him if anything was bothering you. I went to him about getting reassigned. I saw him five times. I wasn’t pleading the feminist case or anything. It wasn’t a political thing. I just wanted something more interesting to do. And frankly I thought the Army was wasting a good soldier. Because I was good.”

Reacher nodded. “So what happened with Gascoigne? ”

Alison made a face.

“I didn’t see it coming,” she said. “At first I thought he was just kidding around.”

She paused. Looked away.

“He said I should try next time without my uniform on,” she said. “I thought he was asking for a date, you know, meet him in town, some bar, off duty, plain clothes. But then he made it clear, no, he meant right there in his office, stripped off.”

Reacher nodded. “Not a very nice suggestion.”

She made another face. “Well, he led up to it pretty slow, and he was pretty jokey about it, at first. It was like he was flirting. I almost didn’t notice, you know? Like he’s a man, I’m a woman, it’s not a huge surprise, right? But clearly he figured I wasn’t getting the message, so then all of a sudden he got obscene. He described what I’d have to do, you know? One foot on this corner of his desk, the other foot on the other corner, hands behind my head, motionless for thirty minutes. Then bending over, you know? Like a porno movie. Then it did hit me, the rage, all in a split second, and I just went nuclear.”

Reacher nodded. “And you busted him?”

“Sure I did.”

“How did he react?”

She smiled. “He was puzzled, more than anything. I’m sure he’d done it lots of times before, and gotten away with it. I think he was kind of surprised the rules had changed on him.”

“Could he be the guy?”

She shook her head. “No. This guy is deadly, right? Gascoigne wasn’t like that. He was an old, sad man. Tired, and ineffectual. Julia says this guy is a piece of work. I don’t see Gascoigne having that kind of initiative, you know?”

Reacher nodded again. “If your sister’s profile is correct, this is probably a guy from the background somewhere. ”

“Right,” Alison said. “Maybe not connected with any specific incident. Maybe some kind of distant observer, turned avenger.”

“If Julia’s profile is correct,” Reacher said again.

There was a short silence.

“Big if,” Alison said.

“You got doubts?”

“You know I have,” she said. “And I know you have, too. Because we both know the same things.”

Harper sat forward. “What are you saying?”

Alison made a face. “I just can’t see a soldier going to all this trouble, not over this issue. It just doesn’t work like that. The Army changes the rules all the time. Go back fifty years, it’s OK to harass blacks, then it’s not. It’s OK to shoot gook babies, then it’s not. A million things like that. Hundreds of men were canned one after the other, for some new invented offense. Truman integrated the Army, nobody started killing the blacks who filed complaints. This is some kind of new reaction. I can’t understand it.”

“Maybe men versus women is more fundamental,” Harper said.

Alison nodded. “Maybe it is. I really don’t know. But at the end of the day, like Julia says, the target group is so specific, it has to be a soldier. Who else could even identify us? But it’s a very weird soldier, that’s for damn sure. Not like any I ever met.”

“Really?” Harper said. “Nobody at all? No threats, no comments, while it was all happening?”

“Nothing significant. Nothing more than casual bullshit. Nothing that I recall. I even flew out to Quantico and let Julia hypnotize me, in case there was something buried there, but she said I came up with nothing.”

Silence again. Harper swept imaginary crumbs from the table and nodded. “OK. Wasted trip, right?”

“Sorry, guys,” Alison said.

“Nothing’s ever wasted,” Reacher said. “Negatives can be useful too. And the coffee was great.”

“You want more?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Harper said. “We’ve got to get back.”

“OK.” She stood up and followed them out of her kitchen. Crossed the hall and opened her front door.

“Don’t let anybody in,” Reacher said.

Alison smiled. “I don’t plan to.”

“I mean it,” Reacher said. “It looks like there’s no force involved. This guy is just walking in. So you might know him. Or he’s some kind of a con artist, with some kind of a plausible excuse. Don’t fall for it.”

“I don’t plan to,” she said again. “Don’t worry about me. And call me if you need anything. I’ll be at the hospital afternoons, as long as it takes, but any other time is good. And best of luck.”

Reacher followed Harper through the front door, out onto the shale path. They heard the door close behind them, and then the loud sound of the lock turning.

THE LOCAL BUREAU guy saved them two hours’ flying time by pointing out that they could hop from Spokane to Chicago and then change there for D.C. Harper did the business with the tickets and found out it was more expensive, which was presumably why the Quantico travel desk hadn’t booked it that way in the first place. But she authorized the extra money herself and decided to have the argument later. Reacher admired her for it. He liked impatience and wasn’t keen on another two hours in the Cessna. So they sent the Seattle guy back west alone and boarded a Boeing for Chicago. This time there was no upgrade, because the whole plane was coach. It put them close together, elbows and thighs touching all the way.

“So what do you think?” Harper asked.

“I’m not paid to think,” Reacher said. “In fact, so far I’m not getting paid at all. I’m a consultant. So you ask me questions and I’ll answer them.”

“I did ask you a question. I asked you what you think.”

He shrugged. “I think it’s a big target group and three of them are dead. You can’t guard them, but if the other eighty-eight do what Alison Lamarr is doing, they should be OK.”

“You think locked doors are enough to stop this guy?”

“He chooses his own MO. Apparently he doesn’t touch anything. If they don’t open the door for him, what’s he going to do?”

“Maybe change his MO.”

“In which case you’ll get him, because he’ll have to start leaving some hard evidence behind.”

He turned to look out of the window.

“That’s it?” Harper said. “We should just tell the women to lock their doors?”

He nodded. “I think you should be warning them, yes.”

“That doesn’t catch the guy.”

“You can’t catch him.”

“Why not?”

“Because of this profiling bullshit. You’re not factoring in how smart he is.”

She shook her head. “Yes, we are. I’ve seen the profile. It says he’s real smart. And profiling works, Reacher. Those people have had some spectacular successes. ”