Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(69)

They waited.

Reacher helped them out. He came down one more step. A subtle difference. Still higher, still bigger, but closer. Maybe close enough to swarm. All three together, all at once. So much press and crowding there wouldn’t really be a nearest guy. Or a farthest guy, or a guy in the middle. They would all be one single unit, like a new species of animal, huge, weighing six hundred pounds, with six hands and six feet.

Which all might have worked, if Reacher had stayed down a step. But he didn’t. They charged and he stepped back up to where he was before, and he kicked the nearest guy in the face. And then he twisted and hit the left-hand guy with his elbow, and twisted again and hit the right-hand guy with the same elbow coming back. Gravity and New Hampshire granite finished the job. All three guys went down backward in a slack tangle and rattled their bones and cracked their heads. Afterward the last one looked best off. He was still moving. So Reacher stepped down and kicked him in the head. Just once. The irreducible number. But hard. To discourage further participation.

Then the lobby door opened and Brenda Amos walked in.





Chapter 27


Amos was in plain clothes, obviously, being a detective, but more than that she was acting a part. She wasn’t a cop, creeping in slow, forewarned and forearmed. She was a regular person, breezing in fast, without a care in the world. She was coming in undercover. No doubt she had volunteered. Or even insisted. Why not? Someone had to clean up someone else’s mess. She had been an MP. What else was she good for? She was carrying a purse. It looked expensive. Probably a knockoff seized from a market. In it would be her badge and her gun. Maybe a spare magazine. But on the outside there was no suggestion. She was just a lady who lunched, come in to borrow a book. She was bright, and vague, and cheerful.

Then she wasn’t.

She stopped.

Reacher said, “I guess this seems like a coincidence.”

She looked at the guys on the floor.

Then at him.

She didn’t speak. He knew why. She didn’t know which feeling was uppermost. Was she mad or glad? Both, of course. She was mad at him, for sure, one hundred percent, but also her problems were solved now, because under the new relative circumstances her inadequate four-man crew was suddenly as good as an armored division. All they had to do was put cuffs on three groaning and dizzy men. Which made her glad. With exactly equal intensity. A full-on hundred percent. Which made her mad all over again, this time at herself, for being glad about such a terrible thing.

“I apologize,” Reacher said. “I needed to find out about a bird. I’m going now.”

“You need to,” she said.

“Apologize?”

“To go now,” she said. “This was nice, but dangerous. They’ll react.”

“Because they have a code?”

“Next time they’ll send someone better.”

“I would hope.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “Not good for you, not good for me.”

“I got what I need,” he said. “I’m out of here.”

“How?”

“In the Subaru. It’s waiting for me. At least it was five minutes ago. You might have scared it away. Like last time.”

Amos took a radio from her bag and called in the question. A second later a voice that could have been Davison’s cut in on a blast of static and said, yes, the Subaru was still at the curb, engine off, driver behind the wheel. She thanked him and clicked off. She looked at the guys on the floor again.

She said, “Why did they come in here?”

“I’m hoping it was to find a bathroom where they could strip off their jump suits. Then they could have scattered three different directions, looking normal in civilian clothes. They might have sown some confusion. That was the percentage play. But in case they had something worse in mind, I figured it would be safer all around if I got my retaliation in first.”

Amos said nothing. He knew why. Mad or glad, still not sure. Then she got back on the radio and ordered all four of the street cops to head for the library. As fast as possible. Repeat, abandon current positions, hustle straight inside the building.

Then to Reacher she said, “And you go get in the Subaru, right now this minute.”

“And get out of town?”

“By the fastest possible route.”

“And never come back?”

She paused.

“Not soon,” she said.

He stepped over an arm and a leg and went out the door he had come in through. He walked the same paved path, past people strolling, and sitting on benches, and lying flat on the grass. He went out the gate and crossed the sidewalk to the Subaru. He tapped on the glass, politely, and then he opened the door and got in.

Burke asked, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“It was a rough-legged hawk,” Reacher said.

“I’m glad you know now.”

“Thank you.”

“I saw cops in the gardens. Just now. First time ever. Guys running in from all sides. Just when I told you it never happens.”

“Maybe there was a big emergency. Maybe there was an unpaid fine.”

“I’ll drive you to the highway now, if you like.”

“No,” Reacher said. “I’m going back to Ryantown. One last look. You shouldn’t come with me. You can let me out at the end of the road. You shouldn’t be involved.”