Running Blind

and real-world dumb, all at the same time. You can’t be rational and irrational. You can’t deal with reality and simultaneously not deal with it.”

There was silence again.

“We know what his motive is,” Lamarr said. “What else could it be? The target group is too exact for it to be anything else.”

Reacher shook his head. “Like it or not, the way you’re describing his motive, you’re calling him deranged. But a deranged guy couldn’t commit these crimes.”

Lamarr clamped her teeth. Reacher heard them click and grind. He watched her. She shook her head. Her thin hair moved with it, stiff, like it was full of lacquer.

“So what’s his real motive, smart guy?” she asked, her voice low and quiet.

“I don’t know,” Reacher said.

“You don’t know? You better be kidding. You question my expertise and you don’t know?”

“It’ll be something simple. It always is, right? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the simple thing is the correct thing. Maybe doesn’t work like that for you guys down here, but that’s how it works out there in the real world.”

Nobody said a word. Then the door opened and Poulton walked into the silence, small and sandy with a faint smile hanging there under his mustache. The smile disappeared as soon as the atmosphere hit him. He sat down quietly next to Lamarr and pulled a stack of paper in front of him, defensively.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Blake nodded toward Reacher. “Smart guy here is challenging Julia’s reading of the motive.”

“So what’s wrong about the motive?”

“Smart guy is about to tell us. You’re just in time for the expert seminar.”

“What about the screwdriver?” Reacher asked. “Any conclusions?”

Poulton’s smile came back. “Either that screwdriver or an identical one was used to lever the lids off. The marks match perfectly. But what’s all this about the motive?”

Reacher took a breath and looked around the faces opposite him. Blake, hostile. Lamarr, white and tense. Harper, curious. Poulton, blank.

“OK, smart guy, we’re listening,” Blake said.

“It’ll be something simple,” Reacher said again. “Something simple and obvious. And common. And lucrative enough to be worth protecting.”

“He’s protecting something?”

Reacher nodded. “That’s my guess. I think maybe he’s eliminating witnesses to something.”

“Witnesses to what?”

“Some kind of a racket, I suppose.”

“What kind of a racket?”

Reacher shrugged. “Something big, something systematic, I guess.”

There was silence.

“Inside the Army?” Lamarr asked.

“Obviously,” Reacher said.

Blake nodded.

“OK,” he said. “A big systematic racket, inside the Army. What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Reacher said.

There was silence again. Then Lamarr buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders started moving. She started rocking back and forward in her chair. Reacher stared at her. She was sobbing, like her heart was breaking. He realized it a moment later than he should have, because she was doing it absolutely silently.

“Julia?” Blake called. “You OK?”

She took her hands away from her face. Gestured helplessly with her hands, yes, no, wait. Her face was white and contorted and anguished. Her eyes were closed. The room was silent. Just the rasp of her breathing.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped.

“Don’t be sorry,” Blake said. “It’s the stress.”

She shook her head, wildly. “No, I made a terrible mistake. Because I think Reacher’s right. He’s got to be. So I was wrong, all along. I screwed up. I missed it. I should have seen it before.”

“Don’t worry about it now,” Blake said.

She lifted her head and stared at him. “Don’t worry about it? Don’t you see? All the time we wasted?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Blake said, limply.

She stared on at him. “Of course it matters. Don’t you see? My sister died because I wasted all this time. It’s my fault. I killed her. Because I was wrong.”

Silence again. Blake stared at her, helplessly.

'You need to take time out,” he said.

She shook her head. Wiped her eyes. 'No, no, I need to work. I already wasted too much time. So now I need to think. I need to play catch-up.”

“You should go home. Take a couple of days.”

Reacher watched her. She was collapsed in her chair like she had taken a savage beating. Her face was blotched red and white. Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes were blank and vacant.

“You need rest,” Blake said.

She stirred and shook her head.

“Maybe later,” she said.

There was silence again. Then she hauled herself upright in her chair and fought to breathe.

“Maybe later I’ll rest,” she said. “But first I work. First, we all work. We’ve got to think. We’ve got to think about the Army. What’s the racket?”

“I don’t know,” Reacher said again.

“Well think, for God’s sake,” she snapped. “What racket is he protecting?”

“Give us what you’ve got, Reacher,” Blake said. “You didn’t go this far without something on your mind.”

Reacher shrugged.

“Well, I had half an idea,” he said.

“Give us what you’ve got,” Blake said again.

“OK, what was Amy Callan’s job?”

Blake looked blank and glanced at Poulton.

“Ordnance clerk,” Poulton said.

“Lorraine Stanley’s?” Reacher asked.

“Quartermaster sergeant.”

Reacher paused.

“Alison’s?” he asked.

“Infantry close-support,” Lamarr said, neutrally.

“No, before that.”

“Transport battalion,” she said.

Reacher nodded. “Rita Scimeca’s job?”

Harper nodded. “Weapons proving. Now I see why you made her tell me.”

“Why?” Blake asked.

“Because what’s the potential link?” Reacher asked. “Between an ordnance clerk, a quartermaster sergeant, a transport driver, a weapons prover?”

“You tell me.”

“What did I take from those guys at the restaurant?”

Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s James Cozo’s business, in New York. I know you stole their money.”

“They had handguns,” Reacher said. “M9 Berettas, with the serial numbers filed off. What does that mean?”