Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(77)

“Soon?”

“Probably not. They’ll wait a while. They’ll want us to build up a sense of security.”

“So it’s safe for a spell. Right now. Then later we could nail up a sheet.”

“Could we?”

“Why not?” Shorty said.

In the past she would have objected purely on the grounds of good manners. Being Canadian. Both the sheet and the wall would be damaged, surely. But now all she said was, “Do you have nails and a hammer?”

“No,” Shorty said.

“Shut up, then. Save your breath to cool your porridge.”

“Sorry,” he said. He stood at the door for a moment. Then he went through. He was sore from sitting, with his butt on one kind of cold tile, and his back on another. He lay down on the bed and stared up through the dark at the ceiling. Somewhere there was a camera. He couldn’t see it. The plaster was smooth all over. So it was in the light fixture or the smoke alarm. Had to be. Probably not the light fixture. Too hot, surely. Secret spy cameras were presumably delicate. Circuit boards, and tiny transmitters.

So it was in the smoke alarm. He stared at it. He imagined it staring back at him. He imagined smashing it with a hammer. He imagined fragments raining down. He imagined the hammer still in his hand. What would he smash next?

He got up off the bed again and went back in the bathroom. He closed the door. He set the faucet running in the sink. Patty watched him from her spot on the floor. He bent down low, close to her ear, and he spoke in a whisper. He said, “I was thinking, suppose I had a hammer, what would I do?”

“Nail up a sheet,” she whispered back.

“I meant after that,” he said.

“What after that?”

“I would come in here. This is the back of the building. All the action is at the front. The bullshit with the blind, and people looking in. Maybe no one is watching the back. The wall is nothing but a skin of tile, then half an inch of wall board, then a six-inch void between the studs, maybe packed with insulation, plus maybe a vapor barrier, and then cedar siding nailed on sixteen-inch centers.”

“So?”

“If I had a hammer I would bust my way through. We could walk away.”

“Through the wall?”

“A proper demolition crew could do it in a second. That would be routine.”

“Then it’s a shame you don’t have a hammer.”

“I figure we could use the suitcase on the tile. Like a battering ram. We could swing it, with the new rope handle. Like one, two, three. I bet the tile would come off all in a sheet. Then I could kick the rest of the way through.”

“You can’t kick through cedar siding.”

“Don’t need to,” Shorty said. “All I need is to pop it off the studs from the inside, where it’s nailed on. With sudden outward force. Which should be easy enough. Then it would fall away by itself. All I would need to actually kick my way through would be the wall board. Which should also be easy enough. That stuff ain’t strong.”

“How wide of a gap would there be?”

“I think about fourteen inches, effectively. We could step through sideways.”

“With the suitcase?”

“Something we got to accept,” Shorty said. “We need to be realistic. The suitcase stays here until we capture a vehicle.”

Patty said nothing for a moment.

Then she whispered, “Capture a what?”

“Some of these guys peering in the window must have driven here. Which means there must be cars in the lot now. Or maybe they all got picked up in a Mercedes SUV. In which case it’s still out there, neatly parked somewhere, all warmed up and ready to go. If we can’t find it, no matter, because there are plenty more in the barn. Which ain’t far away. I bet all the keys are hanging up on a neat little board.”

“So first we destroy their property and then we steal their car.”

“You bet your ass we do.”

“This feels as crazy as the quad-bike thing.”

“The quad-bike thing wasn’t crazy. It worked perfectly. You know that. We saw it working perfectly, every minute, beginning to end. It was something else that didn’t work perfectly. We didn’t know they had cameras and microphones. We didn’t know they were cheating.”

“Just theoretically,” Patty said. “How long would it take to kick through a wall?”

“Not long, if we kept the hole a limited size. If we kept it low down to the ground. If we were prepared to crawl out, hands and knees.”

“How long in minutes?”

Shorty closed his eyes. He visualized. Eight kicks, six with the toe, to crack the wall board in strategic locations, and then two mighty blows with the flat of the sole, to punch it all out. Call it eight seconds overall. Plus then time to tear the insulation out, handful after handful, a blur, like a dog digging up a treasure. Call it another eight seconds. Or ten. Call it twelve seconds, to be on the safe side. So far a total of twenty. But then came the siding. Popping it off the studs would not be easy. It was fixed on with big nails shot out of a gun. Heavy blows would be required. The problem was the angle of attack. He would have to direct low karate-style kicks through a narrow opening. Kind of sideways and downward. Not practical. Hard to develop maximum power. Better to lie on his back. A downward stamping motion would translate to maximum outward force. Over and over again. Eight times at least.