Never Go Back

guess the cameras are small. Maybe just fibre-optic lenses, poking out through the wall. There could be dozens of them. Which would make sense. Someone has to keep an eye open for what could go on, in a place like this.’

‘We need to see someone go in, not out. We need to see how the system works.’

But they didn’t. No one went in. No one came out. The house just sat there, looking smug. The same lights stayed on. The first smears of morning came up over the roof.

Turner said, ‘We’ve never met them.’

Reacher said, ‘They’ve seen our photographs.’

‘Have they shown our photographs to their operations guy?’

‘I sincerely hope so. Because we’re talking about the top boy in charge of intelligence for the United States Army.’

‘Then the door will stay locked,’ Turner said. ‘That’s all. Costs us nothing.’

‘Does it alert them? Or are they alert already?’

‘You know they’re alert. They’re staring into the void.’

‘Maybe they don’t let women in.’

‘They would have to send someone down to explain that. If they don’t recognize us, then we could be anybody. City officials, or whatever. They’d have to talk to us.’

‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Knocking on the door is an option. How far up the list do you want to put it?’

‘In the middle,’ Turner said.

Five minutes later Reacher asked, ‘Below what?’

‘I think we should call the DEA. Or Espin, at the 75th. Or the Metro PD. Or all of the above. The FBI too, probably. They can start work on the financial stuff.’

‘You’re the CO.’

‘I want a legal arrest.’

‘So do I.’

‘Really?’

‘Because you do.’

‘Is that the only reason?’

‘I like a legal arrest wherever possible. Every time. I’m not a barbarian.’

‘We can’t stay here anyway. It’s getting light.’

And it was. The sun was on the far horizon, shooting level rays, backlighting the house, casting impossibly long shadows. A cone of sky was already blue. It was going to be a fine day.

‘Make the call,’ Reacher said.

‘Who first?’

‘Leach,’ Reacher said. ‘Better if she coordinates. Otherwise it will be like the Keystone Cops.’

Turner emptied her pockets of phones, of which there were two, hers and Shrago’s. She checked she had the right one, and she opened it, and she turned away from the street, ready to dial. She was lit up from the back, warm and gold in the new dawn sun.

And then Shrago’s phone rang. On the stone knee-wall, on the ledge below the fence. The crazy birdsong was switched off, but the grinding wasn’t. It was happening big time. The phone was squirming around, like it was trying to choose a direction. The screen was lit up as before, with Incoming Call, and Home.

The phone buzzed eight times, and then it stopped.

‘Dawn,’ Turner said. ‘Some kind of deadline. Either prearranged, or in their own minds. They must be getting plenty anxious by now. They’re going to give up on him soon.’

They watched the house a minute more, and as they turned away an upstairs window lit up bright, just a brief yellow flash, like an old-fashioned camera, and they heard two muffled gunshots, almost simultaneous but not quite, a little ragged, too quick for a double tap from a single weapon, but just right for two old guys counting to three and pulling their triggers.

SIXTY-NINE

NOTHING HAPPENED FOR a long, eerie minute. then the black door was hauled open fast and a whole stream of guys started pouring out, in various states of readiness, some clean and dressed and ready to go, some almost, some still rumpled and creased, all of them white and old, maybe eight or nine of them in total, and mixed in with them were half a dozen younger men in uniform, like hotel pages, and a younger man in a black turtleneck sweater, who Turner thought could be the operations guy. They all slowed down on the sidewalk, and they composed themselves, and then they sauntered away, like nothing was anything to do with them. One guy in a suit walked right past Reacher, with a look on his face that said, Who, me?

Then Reacher and Turner started moving against the fleeing tide, towards the house, towards the black door, and they were buffeted by a couple of late stragglers, and then they were inside, in a wide, cool hallway, done in a Colonial style, all pale yellow, and brass candlesticks, and clocks, and dark mahogany wood, and an oil portrait of George Washington.

They went up the stairs, which were wide and thickly carpeted, and they checked an empty room, which had two elegant daybeds in it, next to two elegant coffee tables. The coffee tables held fine examples of the opium