Never Go Back

Reacher went in first. Then came Sullivan. Then the tall guy. Reacher stopped and pointed.

‘Over there,’ he said. ‘In the crack.’

Sullivan said, ‘What crack?’

‘In the floor, near the wall. Under the window.’

Sullivan stepped forward. The tall guy stopped short of the bed. Sullivan said, ‘I don’t see a crack.’

Reacher said, ‘There’s something in it. It’s wriggling.’

Sullivan froze. The tall guy leaned in. Human nature. Reacher leaned the other way, just a subtle drift, but the tall guy’s mass was moving one way, and Reacher’s the other. Reacher shoved the guy, below his shoulder, on his upper arm, hard, like a swimmer pushes off the end of the pool, and the guy went down over the bed like he was falling off a pair of stilts. Sullivan spun around and Reacher stepped to the door, and out to the corridor, and closed the door and bolted it.

Then he ran back, awkward in his laceless boots, past the room with Sullivan’s briefcase in it, to the next room. He stood well back and looked in through the narrow rectangular window.

And saw Susan Turner for the first time.

She was worth the wait, he thought.

Totally worth it.

She was sitting on the right-hand side of the table. She was wearing army combat uniform, with all the hook-and-loop tapes and tags pulled off, and tan combat boots, with no laces. She was an inch or two above average height. She was small-boned and slender, with dark hair pulled back, and tanned skin, and deep brown eyes. Her face was showing mostly fatigue, but there was spirit in it too, and intelligence, and a kind of detached, ironic mischief.

Spectacular, in Reacher’s considered opinion.

Totally worth the wait, he thought again.

Her lawyer was on the left side of the table, a full bird colonel in Class A uniform. Grey hair and a lined face. Middle-aged and medium-sized.

A man.

A white man.

Heads.

Score three.

Reacher moved on, all the way to the quarantine door between himself and the rear lobby. There was no inside handle. Just a buzzer button, like the conference rooms. He kicked off his boots, and then he hit the button, urgently, over and over again. Less than five seconds later the door opened. The lobby clerk stood there, the handle in his hand. His keys were on a squared-off metal screw ring, like a small piece of mountaineering equipment, secured in a belt loop.

Reacher said, breathless, ‘Your captain is having some kind of a seizure. Or a heart attack. He’s thrashing around. You need to check him out. Right now, soldier.’

Command presence. Much prized by the military. The guy hesitated less than a second and then stepped into the inner corridor. The door started to swing shut behind him. Reacher nudged his left boot into the gap, and then turned to follow. He ran bootless and quiet behind the guy and then overtook him and wrenched open the first cell door he came to. Unlocked and unbolted, because it was empty.

But not for long.

‘In here,’ he said.

The lobby guy shouldered in, fast and urgent, and Reacher grabbed his keys and tore them right off his pants, belt loop and all, and then he shoved him hard and sent him sprawling, and closed the door and shot the bolts.

He breathed in, and he breathed out.

Now came the hard part.

NINETEEN

REACHER PADDED BOOTLESS back to the room where Sullivan’s briefcase still rested on the table. He pushed the door all the way open and darted in and grabbed the case and then he turned back fast and caught the door again before it slammed shut behind him. He knelt on the floor in the corridor and opened the case. He ignored all the files and all the legal paperwork and rooted around until he found a car key, which he put in his pants pocket. Then he found the wallet. He took out the army ID. Sullivan’s first name was Helen. He put the ID in his shirt pocket. He took out her money and put it in his other pants pocket. He found a pen and tore off a small triangle of paper from a Xeroxed form and he wrote Dear Helen, IOU $30, and he signed it Jack Reacher. He put the slip of paper in the money slot, and he closed the wallet, and he closed the briefcase.

Then he stood up, with the briefcase in his hand.

He breathed in, and breathed out.

Showtime.

He moved on, twelve feet, to the next room, and he glanced in through the narrow window. Susan Turner was talking, patiently, marshalling arguments, using her hands, separating one point from another. Her lawyer was listening, head cocked, writing notes on a yellow legal pad. His briefcase was open on the table, pushed to the side. It was emptier than Sullivan’s, but the guy’s pockets were fuller. His uniform was not well tailored. It was baggy and generous. The nameplate on the pocket flap said Temple.