The meeting was held in a room with no windows.

The room was rectangular and it had no windows because it had no external walls. It was contained within a larger, square room. And the square room was contained within an even larger octagonal room. Together this nest of rooms formed the command hub of Unit S2 at the Minerva Correctional Facility in Winson, Mississippi. Along with its sister segregation unit, S1, it was the most secure place in the complex. It was laid out with walls like the concentric rings of a medieval castle. Designed to be impregnable. From the outside, even if attacked by the most determined rescuers. And from the inside, even during the most extreme riot.

The safety aspect was welcome but the reason the hub had been chosen for this meeting was its seclusion. The opportunity it offered for complete secrecy. Because the rest of Unit S2 was vacant. There were no guards. No admin staff. And none of its 120 isolation cells were in use. They weren’t needed. Not with the way the prison was run under its current management. The progressive approach was a cause of great pride. And great PR.

There were six men in the room, and this was the third covert meeting they’d held there in the last week. The men were spread out around a long, narrow table and there were two spare chairs pushed back against a blank, white wall. The furniture was made of bright blue polycarbonate. Each piece was cast in a single mold, leaving no joins or seams. The shape and material made the items hard to break. The color made it hard to conceal any parts that did somehow get smashed off. It was practical. But not very comfortable. And all left over from the previous administration.

Three of the men were wearing suits. Bruno Hix, Minerva’s Chief Executive and joint founder, at the head of the table. Damon Brockman, Chief Operating Officer and the other joint founder, to Hix’s right. And Curtis Riverdale, the prison’s warden, next to Brockman. The man next to Riverdale, the last one on that side of the table, was wearing a uniform. He was Rod Moseley, Chief of the Winson Police Department. On the opposite side, to Hix’s left, were two guys in their late twenties. Both were wearing black T-shirts and jeans. One had a broken nose and two black eyes and a forehead full of angry purple bruises. The other had his left arm in a sling. Both were trying to avoid the other men’s eyes.

“So is there a problem or not?” Brockman shrugged his shoulders. “Can anyone say for sure that there is? No. Therefore we should go ahead as planned. There’s too much at stake to start running from shadows.”

“No.” Riverdale shook his head. “If there might be a problem that means there is a problem, the way I see things. Safety first. We should–”

“We should find out for sure,” Moseley said. “Make an informed decision. The key is, did the guy look in the envelope? That’s what we need to know.”

No one spoke.

“Well?” Moseley stretched his leg out under the table and kicked the guy with the sling. “Wake up. Answer the question.”

“Give me a break.” The guy stifled a yawn. “We had to drive all night to get to Colorado. And all night again to get back here.”

“Cry me a river.” Moseley prodded the guy with his foot. “Just tell us. Did he look?”

The guy stared at the wall. “We don’t know.”

“Looking in the envelope isn’t definitive,” Riverdale said. “If he did look, we need to know if he understood what he saw. And what he plans to do about it.”

“Whether the guy looked is irrelevant,” Brockman said. “So what if he did? Nothing in there gives the slightest clue to what’s going on.”

Riverdale shook his head. “It mentions 10:00 a.m. on Friday. Very clearly. The time, the date, the place.”

“So what?” Brockman raised his hands. “Friday’s an occasion for joy and celebration. There’s nothing remotely suspicious about it.”

“But the photograph was in there.” Riverdale jabbed the air with his finger in time with each syllable. “Eight by ten. Impossible to miss.”

“And again, that means nothing.” Brockman threw himself back in his chair. “Not unless the guy actually comes here. If he shows up on Friday. And even then we’d be OK. We chose very carefully.”

“We didn’t. How could we? We only had nine to pick from.”

A smile flashed across Moseley’s face. “Ironic, isn’t it? That the one we picked really is innocent.”

“I wouldn’t call it ironic.” Riverdale scowled. “And there weren’t nine. There were only five. The others had family. That ruled them out.”

“Nine?” Brockman said. “Five? Whatever. The number doesn’t matter. Only the outcome matters. And the outcome is good enough. Even if the guy shows up, how close would he get? He’d be a hundred feet away, at least.”

“He doesn’t have to show up. He could see it on TV. Online. Read about it in the newspapers.”

“The warden has a point,” Moseley said. “Maybe it would be better not to draw so much attention this time. Maybe we should cancel the media. We could float some BS about respecting the inmate’s privacy, or something.”

“No need.” Brockman shook his head. “You think this guy has a television? A computer? A subscription to The New York Times? He’s destitute, for goodness’ sake. Stop looking for trouble. There isn’t any.”

Hix tapped his fingertips on the tabletop. “Media exposure is good for the brand. We always publicize. We always have. If we change now we would only attract more attention. Make people think something is wrong. But I do think we need to know. Did he look?” Hix turned to the guys in the T-shirts. “Best guess. No wrong answer. The chips fell where they fell. We understand that. Just tell us what you believe.”

The guy with the broken nose took a deep breath through his mouth. “I think he looked.”

“You think?” Hix said. “But you’re not sure.”

“Not one hundred percent.”

“OK. Where was the envelope?”

“In the bag.”

“Where was the bag?”

“On the ground.”

“You put it down?”

“I needed my hands free.”

“Where was it when the car arrived?” Hix said.

The guy with the sling said, “On the ground.”

“In the same place?”

“How could we know? I wasn’t there when Robert put it down. Robert wasn’t conscious when I picked it up.”

Hix paused for a moment. “OK. How long was the guy alone with the bag?”

“We don’t know. Can’t have been long. A couple of minutes, max.”

“So it’s possible he looked,” Hix said. “Glanced, anyway.”

“Right,” the guy with the broken nose said. “And the bag was ripped, remember. How did that happen? And why? We didn’t do it.”

Brockman leaned forward. “It was a crazy scene, from what you told us. Wreckage everywhere. Total chaos. The bag probably got ripped by accident. It doesn’t sound like some major clue. And the other two haven’t reported that he looked.”

The guy with the sling said, “They haven’t reported at all. We don’t know where they are.”

Brockman said, “Must still be on their way back. Phone problems, probably. But if there was anything to worry about they would have found a way to let us know.”

“And the guy didn’t mention anything about it to the police,” Moseley said. “I’ve talked to the lieutenant over there a couple times. That has to mean something.”

“I still think he looked,” the guy with the broken nose said.

“We should pull the plug,” Riverdale said.

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” Brockman said. “We didn’t set the date. We didn’t pick the time. The judge did when he signed the release order. You know that. We pull some bullshit delaying tactic, we wind up ass-deep in inspectors. You know where that would land us. We might as well shoot ourselves in the head, right here, right now.”

Riverdale scowled. “I’m not saying we delay. I’m saying we go back to the original plan. The switch was always a mistake.”

“That would solve Friday’s problem. If there is one. But then we’d have no way out of the bigger jam we’re in. Carpenter’s situation.”

“I said from the start, the solution to that is simple. A bullet in the back of his head. I’ll do it myself if you’re too squeamish.”

“You know what that would cost? How much business we would lose?”

“We’ll lose a lot more than money if this guy joins the dots.”

“How could he do that?”

“He could come down here. You said so yourself. He could dig around. He was a military cop. It’s in his blood.”

“It’s years since the guy was an MP,” Moseley said. “That’s what the lieutenant told me.”

Hix tapped the tabletop. “What else do we know?”

“Not much. He has no driver’s license. No employment history, according to the IRS. Not since he left the army. No social media presence. No recent photographs exist. He’s a hobo now. It’s kind of sad, but that’s the bottom line. Doesn’t sound like much to worry about.”

Brockman said, “Hobo or millionaire, what kind of crazy person would travel halfway across the country because he read a few documents and saw an innocuous picture?”

“Speculate all you want but this still worries me,” Riverdale said. “Each time we met, we thought we had the problem contained. Each time we were wrong. What if we’re wrong again now?”

“We weren’t wrong.” Brockman slammed his palm into the table. “We handled each situation as it came up. Ninety-nine percent.”

“Ninety-nine. Not one hundred.”

“Life isn’t perfect. Sometimes there’s broken glass to sweep up. Which we’ve done. We found out there was a leak. We plugged it, the way we all agreed to. We found out about the missing envelope. We retrieved it, the way we all agreed to.”

“And now this strange guy has looked in the envelope.”

“He may have. We don’t know. But you have to admit, it’s unlikely. He didn’t tell the cops. We know that. And he didn’t tell the FBI or the Bureau of Prisons. We would know that. So say he figured everything out from a couple of seconds alone with the envelope. Why keep the knowledge to himself? What’s he going to do with it? Blackmail us? And you think he’s somehow going to schlep twelve hundred miles before Friday? Come on.”

“Gentlemen!” Hix tapped the tabletop again. “Enough. All right. Here’s my decision. We can’t know if the guy looked in the envelope. It seems unlikely, so we shouldn’t panic. Particularly given the consequences. But at the same time it pays to be cautious. He’s easily recognizable, yes?”

The guy with the broken nose nodded. “For sure. You can’t miss him. Six-five. Two hundred fifty pounds. Scruffy.”

“He’s banged up pretty good, remember,” the guy with the sling said. “I took care of that.”

“You should have killed him,” Brockman said.

“I thought I had.”

“You should have made sure.”

“How? Make it look like an accident. Those were our orders for the other two. I figured they applied to this guy, as well. Hard to sell that story if I put a bullet in his brain.”

“Enough!” Hix waited for silence. “Here’s the plan. We’ll mount surveillance. Round the clock. Starting now, through Saturday. If he sets one toe in our town, we’ll be waiting. And here we don’t have to worry about how anything looks.”

Jack Reacher arrived in Gerrardsville, Colorado, mid-morning on a Monday, two days before the Minerva guys met in secret for the third time. He had hitched a ride in a truck that was delivering alfalfa bales to a farm south of the town so he covered the final mile on foot. It was a pleasant walk. The weather was warm, but not hot. Tufts of cloud drifted across the wide blue sky. The mile-high air was thin and clear. As far as he could see, the land was flat and green and fertile. Watering gantries marked the boundaries of endless fields and between them stalks and leaves of all sizes and shades stretched up toward the sun. To the left, the horizon was dominated by a line of mountains. They jutted straight out of the ground, no gentle buildup, no smooth foothills, and their peaks, capped with snow, cut into the atmosphere like the teeth of a saw.

Reacher continued until he came to the town’s main drag. It carried on for about a half mile, and there was only one block on either side before the stores and offices gave way to the residential streets. The commercial buildings were uniform in size. They were two stories high and they all had similar designs. They were all a similar age, too – late nineteenth century, based on the dates carved into some of the lintels – which gave the place a kind of time-capsule feel. A time when craftmanship was still valued. That was clear. The facades were all made from stone or marble or granite. The woodwork around the doors and windows was intricately carved and lavishly picked out with gold leaf. And every aspect was flawlessly maintained. Reacher appreciated what he saw. But he wasn’t in town to admire its architecture. He was there to visit its museum.

The previous day Reacher had picked up a newspaper someone had abandoned in a diner. He found an article about a dentist and a metal detector. The gadget had been given to the guy as a retirement gift. Some kind of an in-joke based on his reputation for finding fillings done by other dentists in new patients’ teeth and insisting on replacing them. Anyway, to occupy his sudden leisure time the guy reinvented himself as an amateur archeologist. He’d long been obsessed by the Civil War so he set out to visit a whole series of battle sites. Big and small. Famous and obscure. And at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, he found a bunch of artillery fragments and other artifacts. These got rolled into a traveling exhibition about the evolution of Union tactics, which caught Reacher’s eye. Gerrardsville was one of the venues for the display. And as he was only a few miles away while the show was still open, Reacher figured he’d take a look.

Reacher had a cup of coffee at a café he happened to walk past and got to the museum before lunchtime. He stayed until it closed. When he had to be shooed out by one of the curators. Her name was Alexandra. Reacher struck up a conversation with her about the exhibit. The subject turned to the kind of restaurants there were in the town, and they wound up going for a burger together. Alexandra picked a scruffy kind of place. It had rough wooden tabletops. Long benches. Creaky floorboards. Old LP covers were tacked up all over the walls. But the food came fast. The plates were piled high. The prices were low. Reacher liked everything about it.

While they ate the subject changed to music and they wound up at a bar together. It was small. Intimate. Dark. A blues band was playing. Mainly Magic Slim covers with a handful of Howlin’ Wolf songs sprinkled through. Reacher approved. Alexandra ordered a couple of beers and as they drank the subject changed again. It led them in a whole different direction this time. And all the way to Alexandra’s apartment.

Her apartment was above a store near the main intersection in the town. It was a small place. The style was minimalist. It didn’t have much in the way of furniture. Or décor. But it did have a fridge, so they had another beer. It had a CD player, so they listened to some more music. It had a bedroom. And once they reached it, there wasn’t much need for more of anything else.

The museum didn’t open the next day until 10:00 a.m. so Reacher and Alexandra stayed in bed until the last possible minute.

They stayed in bed, but they didn’t spend all their time sleeping. Alexandra knew she was cutting it fine but she took a quick shower anyway. She felt it was wise after their recent level of activity. Reacher made coffee. Then she kissed him goodbye and hurried away to her chosen slice of the past. Reacher took a more leisurely shower then made his way down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk. He was thinking about his more immediate future. He paused to gaze at the mountains for a moment. Then he saw a woman walking toward them. She was on the other side of the street, heading west, almost at the intersection. The Don’t Walk sign was lit up. A guy was standing on the opposite corner, waiting for it to change. And a bus was heading north, about to pass between them.

The bus came to rest at an angle from the curb like it had been stolen by a drunk and then abandoned when the prank lost its gloss. The front end was partly blocking the intersection. Reacher saw the route number on the electronic panel above its entry door switch to a written message: CALL POLICE. He also saw the dead woman’s legs. They were jutting out from under the bus, about halfway between its front and rear wheels. One of her sneakers had fallen off. The guy who had pushed her took a black trash bag from the back pocket of his jeans. He shook it open. Crouched down next to her bare foot. Stretched an arm under the bus. Snagged something and pulled it out. Reacher realized it was the woman’s purse. The guy slipped it into the trash bag. Stood up. Adjusted his hood. And strolled away, heading south, disappearing from sight.

Reacher ran across the street, diagonally, toward the bus. The sidewalk was starting to fill up. People were spilling out of the shops and cafés and offices to gawp at the body. A man in a suit had stopped his car and climbed out to get a better look. But no one was paying any attention to the guy in the hoodie. He was melting away through the fringe of the crowd. Reacher barreled through the spectators, shoving people aside, knocking one of them on his ass. The guy in the hoodie cleared the last of the onlookers. He picked up his pace. Reacher kept going, pushing harder. He barged between one final couple and broke back into a run. The guy was sixty feet ahead now. Reacher closed the gap to fifty feet. Forty-five. Then the guy heard the footsteps chasing him. He glanced over his shoulder. Saw Reacher bearing down on him. He started to run, still clutching the trash bag in one hand. He slipped his other hand up inside his hood. Jabbed at a device that was jammed into his right ear. Barked out a couple of sentences. Then veered off into an alleyway that stretched away to his left.

Reacher kept running until he was a couple of feet from the mouth of the alley. Then he stopped. He listened. He heard nothing so he knelt down, crept forward, and peered around the corner. He figured if the guy had a gun he’d be looking for a target at head height. If he had a knife he’d be winding up for a lunge to the gut. But Reacher didn’t encounter any threat. There was no response at all. So he got back to his feet and took a step forward.

The alley was the cleanest he had ever been in. The walls of the adjoining buildings were pale brick. They looked neat and even. There was no graffiti. None of the second-floor windows were broken. The fire escapes looked freshly painted. There were dumpsters lined up on both sides. They were evenly spaced out. Some were green. Some were blue. All had lids. None was overflowing, and there was no trash blowing around on the ground.

The guy was thirty feet away. His back was against the left-hand wall. He was standing completely still and the trash bag was on the ground at his feet. Reacher moved toward him. He closed the gap to twenty feet. Then the guy lifted the hem of his hoodie. A black, boxy pistol was sticking out of his waistband.

The guy said, “Hold it. That’s close enough.”

Reacher kept moving. He closed the gap to ten feet.

The guy’s hand hovered over the grip of his pistol. He said, “Stop. Keep your hands where I can see them. There’s no need for anyone to get hurt. We just need to talk.”

Reacher closed the gap to four feet. Then he said, “Anyone else.”

“What?” the guy said.

“Someone already got hurt. The woman you pushed. Was there a need for that?”

The guy’s mouth opened and closed but no words came out.

Reacher said, “Down on the ground. Fingers laced behind your head.”

The guy didn’t respond.

“Maybe there is no need for anyone else to get hurt,” Reacher said. “And by anyone, I mean you. It all depends on what you do next.”

The guy went for his gun. He was fast. But not fast enough. Reacher grabbed the guy’s wrist and whipped it away to his right, spinning him around so he was facing the wall.

“Stop.” The guy’s voice was suddenly shrill. “Wait. What are you doing?”

“I’m going to see how you like it,” Reacher said. “There’s no bus. But there are bricks. They’ll have to do.”

Reacher let go of the guy’s wrist. Moved his hand up. Planted it between the guy’s shoulder blades. And pushed. It was a huge motion. Savage. Wild. Way more than sufficient. The guy tried to save himself but he had no chance. The force was overwhelming. He smashed into the wall, face-first, and flopped onto the ground like the bones in his legs had dissolved. Blood was sluicing down from the gashes in his forehead. His nose was broken. There was a serious chance he could suffocate. Or drown.

Neither of those outcomes would have worried Reacher too much.

Reacher’s plan had been to scoop the guy up and carry him back to the bus. That way he’d be ready for when the police arrived. But when he retrieved the trash bag, he paused. The woman’s purse was inside. And something in her purse was worth killing for. Reacher had been an investigator in the army for thirteen years. Old habits die hard. And he couldn’t hear any sirens yet. He knew he had a little time.

Reacher picked up the fallen gun and tucked it into his waistband. Then he wrestled the guy into the recovery position at the foot of the wall and started with his pockets. There was nothing with a name or an address, as Reacher expected, but the guy did have a bunch of keys. Reacher selected the sharpest one and used it to hack a pair of rough, broad strips from around the top of the trash bag. He wrapped the strips around his hands and took out the purse. It was eighteen inches square, made from some kind of faux leather, tan color, with a long narrow shoulder strap as well as regular handles. One side was speckled with blood. The opening was secured with a zipper. Reacher unfastened it. He rummaged inside. The first thing he pulled out was the woman’s wallet. It held a Mississippi driver’s license with the name Angela St. Vrain and an address in a town called Winson. There were three dollars in singles. A wad of receipts from a supermarket and a drugstore. And a photograph of Angela with a little girl. Maybe three years old. The family resemblance was clear. Mother and daughter. Reacher had no doubt.

Reacher set the wallet on the ground and delved back into the purse. He pulled out a laminated card on a pale blue lanyard. A work ID. It showed that Angela was a prison employee of some kind. At a place called the Minerva Correctional Facility, which was also in Winson, Mississippi. He found a hairbrush and a bunch of makeup and other personal items. A key ring, with three keys on it. And an envelope. It was regular manila style. Letter size. But it was addressed to someone else. Another resident of Winson, Mississippi, called Danny Peel. And it had been opened.

The envelope contained one black-and-white photograph – a mug shot dated sixteen years ago – and a stack of papers. The photograph was of a young adult male. His face was drawn and pinched and he had a smattering of close-cropped hair. A recent cut, Reacher thought, based on the pale skin shining through the stubble. He was also drawn to the kid’s eyes. They were set close together, and they were wide open, looking half-frightened, half-confused. And the kid had another unusual feature. One of his earlobes was missing. His left. It looked like it had been sliced off. Its edge was straight and raw and a scar was visible on his neck, running around the back of his head. Done by a straight razor, Reacher thought. Someone must have slashed at the kid, going for his throat, and the kid must have twisted and hunched and pulled away. Not fast enough to avoid getting cut. But fast enough to not get killed. Which was something, Reacher thought. Maybe.

The papers broke down into two groups. The first set was marked Mississippi Department of Corrections and it began the life story of a guy named Anton Begovic. Of his adult life, anyway. They told how Begovic had gotten in trouble at eighteen. He was implicated in a burglary. A bunch of other offenses were linked to him. The weight of the charges grew until he wound up behind bars. An apparently inevitable progression. And things only got worse for him in prison. Within three years he was in solitary. He stayed there for the next seven. But with the second set of papers Begovic’s life turned around.

The change coincided with the prison being taken over by Minerva Correctional. Angela’s employer. Begovic was returned to the general population. His behavior improved. The prison company sponsored an appeal. A PI turned up a deathbed confession from an ex-con who admitted to the offenses that had been pinned on Begovic. The detective who put the case together was found to have killed himself a decade ago, neck-deep in gambling debt. And a judge ordered Begovic’s release. It was imminent. According to the final record, he was going to be set free at 10:00 a.m. that coming Friday.

Reacher slid the photo and the documents back into the envelope. He put the envelope back into the purse and loaded up Angela’s other possessions. He zipped the purse closed and dropped it into the trash bag. Then he unwound the plastic strips from his hands and jammed them into his pocket. He was thinking about the contents of the envelope. The tragic tale of a wrongly convicted man. He wondered what it had to do with Angela. Which made him think of another tragic tale. One that was just beginning. For the little girl in the wallet photo. Angela’s daughter. Who would now have to grow up without a mother.

A car nosed into the entrance to the alley. A black sedan. It was shiny. Sleek. A BMW. Reacher could tell from the blue and white emblem on its hood. It was supposed to represent sky and clouds. Reacher had read about it somewhere. That it harked back to the company’s roots as an aero engine manufacturer. He had no idea which model it was, though. He was no kind of a car guy.

The BMW crept forward. The driver was also wearing a gray hoodie. He slowed to a stop, lowered his window, and said, “Hands where I can see them. Then step away.”

Reacher didn’t move.

The driver shifted into Neutral and revved the engine. He floored the gas pedal twice, three times, then waited for the angry sound to subside. “I said, step away.”

Reacher stayed still.

The car was ten feet from Reacher and eight feet from the wall. The unconscious guy was on the ground, six inches from Reacher’s heels. Presumably he was the driver’s buddy. Which would be why the driver wanted Reacher to move. To avoid harming both of them.

Reacher stayed still.

The car crept forward. The driver pulled on the wheel. He kept going, inching across until the gap between Reacher and the front fender was down to four feet. Then he straightened up and hit the gas. The car surged ahead. The driver held the wheel with his right hand. He worked the door handle with his left. He pushed the door all the way open and kept it there like he was a knight on horseback trying to bludgeon his opponent with his shield. Trying to knock him down. Or back him away from his safe position, at least.

Reacher didn’t back away. Instead he took a step forward. Toward the car. He raised his knee and drove the ball of his foot into the door. He put all his strength into the kick. All his weight. He connected with the center of the panel. The metal skin warped and shrieked and deformed. The door slammed shut. The car fizzed past Reacher then swerved away to the right. The driver fought the wheel. He braked, hard, but he was a moment too late. The front right corner of the car slammed into a dumpster on the other side of the alley. Its headlight shattered. The driver slammed into Reverse and hit the gas again. He tugged on the wheel. The car slewed around then straightened. Its back left corner was lined up with Reacher’s legs. The guy on the ground would be fine. He would be safely beneath the car’s rear overhang. But Reacher wouldn’t escape. Not at that angle. He’d be crushed against the wall.

Reacher dived toward the mouth of the alley, rolled over once, and scrambled back to his feet. The car hit the wall. More glass broke. Shards showered down over the unconscious guy’s chest and abdomen. But they weren’t sharp enough to cut through his clothes. And the impact wasn’t sufficient to immobilize the car.

The driver had stayed in his seat throughout. That was understandable. Avoiding a fist fight was a smart move. But he’d made no attempt to shoot. Reacher figured he must want whatever happened to look like an accident. That would be a little suspicious, given how close they were to the place where the bus had crushed Angela St. Vrain. But a lot less suspicious than leaving a body with a fatal gunshot wound.

Reacher was under no such constraint. He drew the gun he’d taken from the guy on the ground and stepped around the car. He was going for a shot through the passenger window. The driver saw what was happening and lurched forward, straight down the center of the alley. Reacher fired three shots at the rear window, instead. The first turned the glass into a dense mesh of opaque crystals. The second knocked the whole mass onto the car’s backseat. The third hit something inside. Reacher was sure about that. But he couldn’t tell if it was the driver. Or the head restraint. Or some other random component.

The car stopped. It paused for a moment. Then its one remaining reverse light came on. Its tires squealed. It sped backward. Reacher fired three more shots. All of them hit the driver’s seat. But the car kept on coming. Straight at Reacher. No sign of slowing. No sign of swerving. The driver must have been hunkered down low. Maybe halfway into the foot well, if he was small enough. Reacher figured the guy was using the backup camera to see where to steer. He raised the gun, wondering where the lens would be. Then he pushed the thought away. There was no time. He feinted left then darted to his right. He wanted another try for the passenger window. It was close. A couple more seconds and he’d have a clear shot. Then he would finish the guy. That was for damn sure.

The driver swerved hard right. Reacher was penned in by the wall on one side. He’d be hit by the car if he moved the other way. Or if he went forward. Or if he went back.

The car was moving fast. The rear wing was inches away.

There was nowhere for Reacher to go.

Except up. If he timed it just right.

Reacher jammed the gun into his waistband. Waited another fraction of a second. Then sprang onto the car’s trunk and kicked down. Hard. With both legs. He threw his arms above his head for extra lift. His fingertips brushed metal. Rough, cold iron. Part of one of the fire escapes. A rung on its lowest section. Folded into its dormant, horizontal position, like a set of monkey bars in a gym. He grabbed hold. Gripped tight. And swung his legs up to clear the roof of the car.

For the first fifteen years of his life Jed Starmer didn’t give much thought to the concept of the law.

He was aware that laws existed. He understood that they somehow shaped and controlled the world around him, but only in an invisible, abstract sense, like gravity or magnetism. He knew that there were consequences if you broke them. Penalties. Punishments. All kinds of unpleasant outcomes. He had seen huddles of people in orange jumpsuits at the side of the highway being forced to pick up trash. He had listened to his foster parents’ warnings about juvenile hall. And jail. And ultimately Hell. But still, none of that struck much of a chord. It didn’t seem relevant to his life. He wasn’t about to rob a bank. Or steal a car. He didn’t even cut school very often. There were other things for him to worry about. Far more urgent things, like not being kicked out of the house and forced to live on the street. And how to avoid getting stabbed or shot any time he wanted to go anywhere.

Jed’s perspective changed completely on his fifteenth birthday. That was two weeks and two days ago. It was a Sunday so while his foster parents were at church Jed took the bus five miles, deep into South Central L.A., where he had been told never to go. He walked the last two hundred yards, along the cracked sidewalk, trying not to look scared, staring straight down, desperate to avoid eye contact with anyone who might be watching. He made it to the short set of worn stone steps that led to his birth mother’s apartment building. Scurried to the top. Pushed the door. The lock was broken, as it had been each time he’d snuck over there in the last couple of years, so he stepped into the hallway and started straight up the stairs. Two flights. Then along to the end of the corridor. He knew there was no point trying the buzzer so he knocked. He waited. And he hoped. That his mother would be there. That she would be sober. And that even if she didn’t remember what day it was, she would at least remember him.

It turned out Jed’s mother did remember. The day, and the person. She was perfectly lucid. She was even dressed. She opened the door, cigarette in hand, and led the way through the blue haze to the apartment’s main room. The shades were closed. There was junk everywhere. Clothes. Shoes. Purses. Books. Magazines. CDs. Letters. Bills. All heaped up in vague piles like some halfhearted attempt at organization had been made by someone completely unfamiliar with the concept. She stopped in the center of the mess for a moment, sighed, then gestured toward the couch. Jed squeezed by and took a seat in one corner. She sat at the opposite end and crushed out her cigarette in an ashtray on the side table next to her. It was already overflowing. A river of ash cascaded onto the carpet. She sighed again then turned to face Jed. She said she’d been expecting him. She hadn’t gotten him a present, obviously, but she was glad he had come because there was something she needed to tell him. Two things, in fact.

The first thing was that she was sick. She had pancreatic cancer. Stage four. Jed didn’t have a strong grasp of human biology. He didn’t know what the pancreas did. He wasn’t sure what the number signified. But he gleaned through his mother’s tears that the gist was bad. It meant she didn’t have long left to live. Months, possibly. Maybe weeks. Certainly not longer.

The second thing Jed’s mother told him was the truth about his father. Or what she believed to be the truth, at least.

Reacher’s ears were ringing when he came around. There was a sharp pain in his head. The weight of the metal on his chest made it hard to breathe. It took him a moment to figure out what was pinning him to the ground. Then another five minutes of shoving and heaving and scrabbling before he was able to wriggle free.

A small crowd had gathered at the mouth of the alley. Reacher recognized some of the people. They had been gawping at the bus after it crushed Angela St. Vrain. The excitement out there must have died down. They must have gambled that the action in the alley would be more interesting. They were certainly more interested in watching than getting involved. It was only when Reacher had almost extracted himself that a couple of the younger men stepped forward and tried to take his arms.

Reacher pushed them away.

One of them said, “You OK, buddy?”

Reacher said nothing.

“Because we thought we heard gunshots.” The guy shrugged. “Guess it must have been the metal breaking.”

Reacher took several deep gulps of air while he waited for the crowd to disperse then got busy checking the alley around him. There were tire marks on the pavement. Paint transfer in a couple of spots on the walls. A big dent in the nearest dumpster. A scattering of broken glass here and there. But no gun. No guys in hoodies. No car. No trash bag. No purse. And no envelope.

Ticket first, Jed Starmer thought, then something to eat.

Not that Jed was any kind of an expert traveler. This was only going to be the second time he’d left Los Angeles County since his mother brought him there when he was a baby. Now he was leaving for good and so far he wasn’t enjoying the experience. He’d had to pack, which was a problem because he didn’t have a suitcase or a duffel. He didn’t want to steal one from his foster parents or the other kids he lived with and there was nowhere in his neighborhood that sold them. So he did the only thing he could think of. He opened up his school backpack and dumped all the institutional crap into the trash. He replaced it with clothes. Just the basics, snatched at random from his closet, as many as would fit. He grabbed his toothbrush from the bathroom, more or less as an afterthought, and jammed it in his pocket. Then he took a final look around the house. He had hated the building the moment he first set foot through the door. He had been miserable pretty much every minute he had spent there. Now it seemed like the most welcoming place in the world.

Now that he was never going to see it again.

Next up was an issue with the bus that Jed needed to catch. It didn’t show up when it was supposed to. Which wasn’t a concern in terms of time. Jed had built plenty of slack into his schedule. It was a question of exposure. Jed’s foster mother got off work early on Tuesdays. She drove home down the street where the bus stop was located. Jed was standing there alone. He was totally exposed. There was no way she could miss him. And if she caught him there with a pocket full of her cash, he would have hell to pay.

Ten minutes ticked by. Twenty. There was no sign of any public transport. No sign of his foster mother. Another five minutes crept past. It couldn’t be long until she appeared. She had to be close. Jed couldn’t keep still. He started looking around for bolt holes. Anywhere he could hide if he saw her coming. Then the bus wheezed into sight. It dawdled along the street and ground to a halt next to him. He had severe reservations about its state of maintenance but he couldn’t afford to wait for the next one. Not without inviting disaster. So he climbed on board, paid his fare, then hustled to the back and tried not to draw attention to himself through the long, stop-start trek to 7th and Decatur.

Jed jumped down directly across the street from the Greyhound station. He was glad he was no farther away. He didn’t like the feel of the neighborhood. Not at all. It was only a couple of blocks from the old Skid Row. He had heard stories. Seen movies. Some guys were hanging around on the sidewalk. A dozen of them. They were skinny. Half of them were smoking. All of them were watching him. Like jackals, he thought. Or hyenas. Like he was their prey. There was another bunch of guys in the parking lot out front of the station. They looked a little older. But no more welcoming. Jed lowered his gaze. He snaked his way around both groups and followed the signs to the terminal entrance.

The lock’s mechanism clicked and whirred. Reacher’s door swung open. A quadrant of light unfurled across the garish carpet. Two men crept inside. Both mid-twenties. Both holding guns. One eased the door back into place in its frame. They stood still for a moment. Then they started toward the bed. It was only semi-visible. The glow filtering through the thin drapes was pale. But the shape beneath the covers was tall. It was broad. It was what they were expecting.

The men separated, one either side of the mattress. They continued to the head of the bed. It was a warm night but the comforter was pulled all the way up over the pillows. The guy nearer the window shrugged, then prodded what he estimated would be Reacher’s shoulder with the muzzle of his gun.

He got no response.

He poked again. Harder. He said, “Hey. Wake up.”

The ceiling light flicked on. The guys spun around. They saw Reacher at the other end of the room. He opened the door and stepped outside. Then he darted to the side and pressed his back against the external wall.

The guys ran after Reacher. The first one’s leading foot touched the ground outside and Reacher smashed him in the face with his forearm. The guy’s nose shattered. His neck snapped back. He collapsed through the doorway, piled into his buddy’s chest, and knocked him down. Reacher scooped up the guy’s gun and followed him inside.

The first guy wasn’t moving. The second had rolled onto his side and was scrabbling to retrieve his gun from where he dropped it when he fell. Reacher stamped on his hand. The guy screamed and curled up into a ball. Reacher grabbed the first guy by the arm, pulled him into the room, and closed the door.

There was a bang on the wall. A man’s voice yelled, “Hey. Room 12. Keep it down.”

Reacher waited for the second guy to go quiet then said, “Get up. Sit in the chair if you want. We can be civilized about this.”

The guy scuttled back on his heels and his butt and his good hand until his shoulders were touching the wall.

Reacher said, “I met a couple of your friends today. Here, in town. In an alley. Where are they now?”

The guy didn’t respond.

Reacher said, “Why did one of them kill a woman this morning? Push her under a bus?”

The guy didn’t answer.

Reacher stepped in close and stamped on the guy’s other hand. He screamed again, louder, and rolled onto his other side.

There was another bang on the wall. A man’s voice yelled, “Room 12. Be quiet. Last warning.”

Reacher waited for the guy to uncurl himself a little then said, “Who do you work for?”

The guy shook his head.

Reacher stamped on the guy’s right knee. He screamed, long and loud.

Reacher said, “I can go on all night. Can you? The other two. Where are they?”

The guy said, “They left town.”

“Where are they going?”

“Home. Winson, Mississippi.”

“Why did you stay?”

“We were told to find you.”

“Why?”

“Find out what you know.”

“About?”

The light filtering through the drapes switched from dull gray to pulsing red and blue. Reacher peered out of the window. There were two police cars in the parking lot. One outside his room. One at the far end. An officer was already on foot, heading for the office. To talk to the clerk. To check on numbers and dispositions. And to get a passkey. None of those things would take long. Reacher figured he had sixty seconds at best. He hauled the first guy up onto his feet and turned him so that his back was to the door. He punched the side of the guy’s head and let him fall to the floor again. He grabbed the second guy. Pulled him away from the wall. Smashed the back of his head into the floor. Pinched one of his earlobes to make sure he was unconscious. Dragged him forward until his feet were almost touching the first guy’s. They were lying like the hands of a clock at close to 3:00 p.m. He wiped his prints off the first guy’s gun and tossed it onto the floor. Went into the bathroom. Opened the window. And climbed out.

The area at the back of the hotel was not promising. There was a small pool and a bunch of white plastic lounging chairs all surrounded by a rickety wooden fence. It was eight feet tall. Ancient. No way would it take his weight. The only way out was through the office, and a pair of cops would be coming the other way any second. Two at the front. Two at the back. That was the obvious way to do it. He was trapped. And there was nowhere to hide. Not at ground level, anyway.

Reacher moved back to his bathroom window and lifted one foot onto the sill. He pushed up and grabbed the edge of the roof. Pulled with his arms. Scrambled over the lip. Rolled to the center. And lay completely still. He heard footsteps on both sides of the building. They were close. The ones at the front stopped moving. Someone thumped on the door.

“Gerrardsville Police Department. Open up.”

The officers at the rear were poking around the pool furniture. One of them took a chair and set it next to the fence. He climbed up and looked over and quartered the area on the far side with his flashlight. Then he jumped down and called, “Clear.”

Reacher heard the whirr of the lock and then a thump as the door to his room hit one of the unconscious guy’s heels. There was a pause, the door closed, then he heard the cop’s voice through the bathroom window. It sounded like he was on his radio.

“We have two male suspects, nonresponsive. Two guns secured at the scene.”

A second voice said, “Looks like they got into it over something. Got into it pretty good. No ID. No smell of booze. Better send a bus right away.”

The first voice came back, quieter. “They can stay in the hospital overnight. The detective can question them in the morning, if he wants to. We better seal this place, just in case.”

Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

That’s what Lev Emerson was told by his father, years ago when he was still in high school. It wasn’t an original concept. It wasn’t the result of radical new thinking. But nonetheless, the advice was sound. Old Mr. Emerson had followed it himself. He had died happy at the age of seventy-four, at his workbench, after a lifetime making ladies’ hats in the corner of a little workshop in Brooklyn. Lev Emerson walked the same talk. Just as enthusiastically. Although it led him down a path his father could never have anticipated.

On the face of it Lev Emerson owned and operated a fire safety business out of a pair of nondescript warehouses on the south side of Chicago. It was a legitimate corporation. It was in good standing with the State of Illinois. It had articles of association. Shareholders. Executive officers. Employees. Accounts with all kinds of recognizable brand-name suppliers. It had plenty of customers, most of whom were satisfied. It paid taxes. It sponsored a local kids’ softball team. And it provided cover for certain other materials that Emerson had to have shipped in from a handful of less-well-known sources.

The bulk of the corporation’s reported income came from sprinkler installations and alarm systems. There was no shortage of co-ops and condo buildings in Chicagoland, as well as offices and industrial premises. New ones were constantly going up. Old ones were always getting refurbished. The pickings were rich for an outfit like Emerson’s. And it didn’t hurt that the rules and regulations changed so frequently. Something that was up to code one year could be condemned as dangerous the next. And again a couple of years after that. Hidden interests were served. The way things had always been in the Windy City. Pockets got lined. Companies got busy. Plenty of them. Including Emerson’s. Corporate clients were its bread and butter. But that didn’t mean it turned its back on the little guys. Emerson insisted on offering a full range of services to the safety-conscious homeowner, too. That helped to broaden the customer base, which was good from a business point of view. And the steady flow of station wagons and minivans through the parking lot added to an impression of banal normality. Which was good for another reason.

Emerson’s name might have been over the door but he had nothing to do with the banal, normal side of the business. For that he hired people who knew what they were doing. Who could be trusted to keep their fingers out of the register. And he left them to get on with it. Partly because he was naturally a good delegator. Partly because he had no interest in sprinklers and alarms or anything else that helped to prevent fires. But mostly because his time was fully occupied elsewhere. He had a parallel operation to run.

The thing he loved to do.

The Greyhound bus was alive with sound.

The fat tires thrummed on the blacktop and thumped over every crack and pothole. The ventilation system murmured and sighed. Conflicting bass rhythms escaped from several passengers’ headphones. Some of the younger guys laughed out loud at shows they were watching on their tablets and phones. Some of the older ones talked. A couple argued. A few snored and grunted and groaned. Normally an unaccustomed racket like that would have kept Jed Starmer awake. He liked quiet at night, aside from the usual sirens and background traffic noise that filtered through his window and into his bedroom. But the craziness of the last few days had taken its toll. Its sudden absence merged with the darkness and the soft swaying motion. It pulled him down into the depths of sleep. Its hold was so strong that it took a couple of minutes after the driver switched on the bright interior lights for him to surface. By then the bus was stationary, lined up next to another one just like it, and the rest of the passengers were standing and stretching and fussing with their luggage or shuffling up and down in the aisle.

Jed had pulled his backpack onto his lap at some point after the bus left its previous stop in Blythe, California. He was hunched over it, resting his head on its top flap, hugging it tight like a giant teddy bear. He straightened up and pushed the bag onto the seat next to him, not wanting to look like a little kid. Then he peered out of his window. He saw a sign on the side of the depot building in the distance. It was covered with mountain silhouettes and cartoon cacti and it said Welcome to Phoenix, Arizona in English and Spanish. He checked the time. It was ten after two. The early hours of Wednesday morning. Which meant they were ten minutes ahead of schedule. Their stop would be stretched to an hour and a half. It would be the only significant break they got before El Paso, Texas, which they wouldn’t reach until lunchtime. Jed thought about getting out of the bus for a while. Finding something to eat. Stretching his legs. But he decided against it. He only had three hundred dollars left. He had some big expenses coming up. And his whole body felt drained. He doubted he could drag himself out of his seat. So he stayed where he was. Leaned back. Closed his eyes. And made sure not to cuddle his backpack again.

He didn’t want to look like a kid.

Jack Reacher slept lightly in his replacement room. He woke himself at 9:00 a.m. He showered. He got dressed. And he had just folded his toothbrush, ready to leave, when there was a heavy knock at his door.

“Jack Reacher? This is Detective Harewood, Gerrardsville PD. Are you in there? We need to talk.”

Reacher opened the door and let the detective in. Harewood glanced around the space. He waited for Reacher to sit on the bed and then took the only chair. It was a fluffy turquoise thing with a loose arm and it wasn’t at all comfortable. Harewood fidgeted in vain for a moment then put a file he’d been carrying down on the floor.

He said, “You should get a cellphone.”

Reacher said, “Why?”

“So that people can call you.”

“Like who?”

“Like me.”

“You likely to do that often?”

Harewood paused. “No. But that’s not the point. You’re a hard man to find. It would have been easier if I could have called you. Asked you where you were.”

“But you did find me.”

“Eventually. I called all the hotels in town and asked if they had a guy named Reacher registered. Of course they all said no. So I figured you were using an alias. I remembered you told me you came to town to see the exhibition about Pea Ridge. So I called all the hotels back. Asked for a guest named Samuel Curtis. The victorious general from the battle. And boom. Here you are.”

“I’m impressed. You should be a detective.”

Harewood smiled, but without any humor. “About that. It’s why I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to let you know that the case – the woman killed by the bus – has been closed.”

Reacher thought about the two men he’d seen being wheeled away on gurneys the night before. They’d been in bad shape. Maybe the beating they’d taken had made them open to a deal. He said, “You caught the guys?”

“It’s been ruled a suicide.”

Reacher said nothing.

Harewood closed his eyes and shook his head. “Look, I know what you told me. About the guy in the hoodie. How he pushed the woman. I believe you. But here’s the problem. Another witness came forward. He swears he saw the woman dive in front of the bus. Deliberately dive.”

“He’s wrong.”

“I believe you. But this other guy? He’s … respectable.”

“And I’m not?”

“I didn’t say that. My lieutenant–”

“This witness is wrong. Or he’s lying. Maybe he’s in on it. Or maybe he was paid off.”

Harewood shook his head. “He’s a solid citizen. He’s lived right here in town his whole life. Has a house. A wife. A job. Doesn’t gamble. Doesn’t drink or use drugs. Isn’t in debt. Never even got a parking ticket.”

“Other witnesses, then? Passengers on the bus. Someone must have seen something.”

“One passenger thinks she saw the woman jump. But she wasn’t wearing her glasses so she’s not much use either way. And another passenger saw you. Fleeing the scene. Which is one reason why my lieutenant–”

“Is there a note?”

Harewood paused. “She left one at her home. In Mississippi. On her kitchen table. We got prints from the ME, pulled her ID, and asked the local PD to check her house. They found it right away.”

“Was the note typed?”

“No. It was handwritten. And signed. No red flags there.”

“What makes you think it’s genuine?”

Harewood retrieved his file, took out two sheets of paper, and handed them to Reacher. “The first is her most recent job application. The company she works – worked – for makes all their candidates fill in these forms by hand. Supposedly that reveals all kinds of hidden stuff about people’s personalities. Helps to weed out sociopaths and other undesirable characters. The second is her note.”

Reacher started with the job form. He didn’t have much experience with employment paperwork but what he read struck him as generic and banal. The first box was headed Please state your reasons for seeking this position. Angela’s writing was large and rounded and a little childish. She had claimed she wanted to help people. To build on the skills she had developed in previous roles. To make a contribution to the community at large. There was nothing to suggest she had been a stand-out candidate. Or that she was looking to work in a prison. It could have been an application for work as a dog warden. Or at a candy store.

The second sheet had no structure. No questions to answer or information to provide. It had started life as a regular piece of blank paper. The kind that gets used in printers and copiers in homes and offices all over the country. All over the world. Pumped out of giant factories by the million. Used and filed and forgotten. Or thrown away. Or shredded. Only this one had not wound up as something ordinary. Something trivial. The words began about an eighth of the way down, close to the edge. If you’re reading this, I’m sorry, but it’s because I’m dead…

Reacher compared the samples. The way the letters were formed. The size and the shape and the spacing. The punctuation. The phrasing. He factored in the passage of time. The effect of stress. He was no expert but he had to admit they did look like the work of the same person. He tucked the note back under the form where he wouldn’t have to look at it anymore, passed both pages to Harewood and said, “OK. Motive?”

“A love affair gone bad.”

“How do you figure?”

“Angela was an admin assistant at a prison. When we notified the local PD they contacted her work. It’s a private company. They have the right to monitor their employees’ personal email. It’s a security thing. Built into their contracts. Most people don’t know it’s there. Or they forget about it. So their IT guy pulled up her account. Standard procedure in the event of a sudden death. He found a message chain going back a few weeks. Evidently Angela wanted to rekindle an old flame. With an old boyfriend who lived near here. A guy named Roth. They set a rendezvous for Tuesday. Yesterday. She implied in her last email that if it didn’t work out, she didn’t want to live anymore. A little passive-aggressive, if you ask me.”

“Lived near here?”

“What?”

“You said the boyfriend lived.”

Harewood nodded. “Roth’s DOA. He had a heart attack.”

“When?”

“Monday night. Late. Maybe around midnight.”

“So this guy Roth died less than twelve hours before Angela was killed. You buy that as a coincidence?”

Harewood shrugged.

Reacher said, “Who found the body?”

“His ex-wife.”

“Where?”

“At his apartment. Yesterday morning. He was a big guy. As in ripped. Not fat. He had a home gym. He’d been working out. Which he did regularly. And then, bang. Game over. Just like that.”

“Steroids? Or whatever the latest thing is?”

“No indication of any.”

“Why was his ex-wife at his apartment?”

“For breakfast.”

“Is that normal?”

“For them, yes, apparently.”

“How did she get inside?”

“She has a key.”

“Sounds cozy.”

“I guess.”

“Maybe the ex was trying to get back into the picture. Found out about this reunion. Got jealous.”

Harewood shook his head. “I don’t think so. They’d been divorced ten years. She moved to the apartment next door when they split. Neighbors said they got on like brother and sister. Any kind of spark fizzled out years ago. There was no bad blood.”

“Had Roth had other relationships?”

Harewood shrugged.

Reacher said, “Did the ex know about his relationship with Angela?”

“We didn’t ask her about it. We had no reason to. Roth’s body was found before Angela got killed. We didn’t know anything about her until we pulled her out from under that bus.”

“So the ex didn’t confirm the rendezvous?”

“No. That’s not to say she didn’t know about it. But we already verified it another way.”

Harewood thumbed through his file, pulled out another piece of paper, and set it on the edge of the bed. Reacher wasn’t familiar with the format but he guessed it was a transcript of the emails that the Minerva IT guys had come up with. It was certainly made up of alternating messages between two people. He assumed they were Angela and Roth but the names weren’t shown in a way he could decipher. There were just bunches of letters and numbers with @ signs in the middle and .coms at the end. There were vertical lines at the left of the page, starting at the top of each separate message and running all the way down to the end of the last one. Each successive line was one space to the right so that the lowest message was all squashed up into less than half the width of the page. It was the oldest, from Angela. She had been putting out feelers about getting back together. Reacher could sense her excitement. Her trepidation. The newest message, at the top, written on Sunday morning, was also from Angela. The tone was flat. She sounded depressed. The tentative hope had faded away. All that was left was an undercurrent of despair. Plus a bunch of hints that she couldn’t carry on alone. Just as Harewood had reported.

Reacher put the paper down. “If Angela came here to meet Roth, where is her purse? Her car?”

Harewood took the paper and slipped it back into his file. “Her purse was in her car. Her car was in a parking lot. The first one you come to if you’re coming in from the east. Like she would have done.”

“I saw the guy take her purse. They must have dumped it in her car. Was there an envelope inside it?”

Harewood checked his notes. “No. There was a wallet. Keys. Some personal stuff. But no correspondence. Why?”

“Never mind. How do you account for the blood?”

“What blood?”

“On her purse. There was blood spatter all over one side of it.”

“There’s no record of that. What makes you think so?”

“I saw it.”

“How? Blood wouldn’t stand out against black leather.”

“The purse was tan. And it wasn’t leather.”

Harewood checked his notes again. “It was leather. And it was black.”

“They must have switched it. Replaced it with a sanitized one.”

“Can you prove that?”

“What about her kid?”

“How do you know she had a kid?”

“Lucky guess.”

Harewood shook his head. “She made arrangements with a neighbor. A woman who often watched her.”

“Permanent arrangements? With money attached? Adoption papers? Favorite toys?”

Harewood shrugged. “I only have what the officers in Mississippi passed along. They seem satisfied.”

“And the BMW?”

Harewood shook his head. “That’s another problem. The plates you gave me are registered to a Dodge Caravan in Oklahoma City. The owner was at work yesterday. He has a receipt from a parking garage. Timestamped, with pictures of the vehicle arriving and leaving.”

“OK. Where are the shell casings? I put six rounds into that car.”

“CSU swept the alley. Twice. It was clean. No trace of any brass.”

“So test my hands for GSR.”

“Which would prove what? That you fired a gun? Not necessarily a gun that fired missing rounds at a missing car.”

“What about the fire escape? There’s no hiding that.”

“It collapsed. Sure. But there’s no proof why.”

“What about–”

“Listen, Reacher. I’ve already asked all these questions. And I’ve been told to stop. In no uncertain terms. The file is closed. I just came to let you know the situation. As a courtesy.”

“Then I guess we’re done here. You know where the door is.”

Harewood didn’t move.

Reacher waited thirty seconds then stood up and dropped his room key onto the bed. “Do me a favor. Leave that at reception on your way out.”

Harewood said, “Wait. I came to… Well, I didn’t just come as a courtesy.”

Reacher sat back down.

“To be completely honest, my lieutenant wants you out of the jurisdiction. He thinks you’re trouble.”

“So you’re here to drag me across the county line?”

“No. I’m not here at all. Not officially.”

“I figured. Showing evidence to a potential suspect – that can’t be SOP around here.”

“No.” Harewood looked down at the floor. “The lieutenant would have my ass for that.”

“So why did you do it?”

“I ran your record. The 110th. The special investigators. Your old unit. In the army.”

“What about it?”

“Look, I’m new to this gig.”

“And?”

“I don’t have anyone else to ask.”

“Ask what?”

“If you were me, what would you do?”

“About what?”

“My lieutenant has ordered me to drop this case. I think he’s wrong. I want to keep working it. Should I do that?”

“You’re talking about going against your chain of command.”

“Yes, sir. I’m clear about that.”

Reacher paused. “Marine Corps?”

“How did you know?”

“My father was a Marine. I know the signs.”

“So? What should I do?”

“Your lieutenant – is he a crook? Is he running a coverup of some kind?”

“I don’t think so. I think the guy’s just lazy. He’s been given a result tied up in ribbons. He doesn’t want to untie them and see what’s really inside the box. He doesn’t want to do the work.”

“What’s Roth’s ex’s name?”

“Hannah Hampton.”

“His address?”

“I’ll write it for you.”

“Good. Then this is what you should do. Go back to work. Business as usual. Say nothing more about this.”

“I’m not asking you to work the case for me.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t get involved.”

“I’m already involved.”

“You should get uninvolved.”

“A woman was murdered. Someone has to do something about that.”

“We will do something. The police department.”

“Will you? With your lazy lieutenant?”

Harewood looked at the ground.

“Give me that address. Then keep your head down. I’ll be in touch.”

Factor in the fittings and fixtures, add on the value of the art that covers the walls, and the Minerva Reception Center in Winson cost more per square foot than any corporate headquarters in the State of Mississippi. That was a sound bite Bruno Hix loved to throw around. Especially to the press. It may even have been true. Hix didn’t care. He wasn’t a detail man. He was all about creating the right impression. Building the center was the first thing Minerva did after it bought the prison and the brief Hix gave the architects was simple: Make sure the place reeks of money.

The Reception Center was near the entrance to the site, on the opposite side from the secure units. The building was a single story high, faced in pale stone, and shaped like a V. Partly so that it would fit in the available space, which was limited. But mainly so that its windows, which were on its inner face only, did not have a view of the cell blocks and exercise yards. Its conference room took up one whole wing. Hix hustled through the maze of fenced-in walkways that crisscrossed the complex the minute the covert meeting in S2’s hub wrapped up but he still failed to get to it on time. When he burst through the double doors, a little pink and out of breath, six faces were already staring back at him. Three on one side of the long alder table. Two on the other. And one all the way at the far end. They were journalists, there to be briefed about the event planned for Friday. Plus whatever else Hix chose to spoon-feed them while they were his captive audience.

Hix waited for Damon Brockman, Minerva’s other co-founder, to take a seat and dismissed the guard who’d been keeping an eye on the visitors. Then he got the ball rolling the way he always did. He stood at the head of the table, stretched out his arms like a TV evangelist, and said, “Tell me the truth. Does this room feel like it’s part of a prison?”

Five of the journalists obediently shook their heads. Only the guy at the far end didn’t respond.

Hix smiled and moved on to some history. His own, and Brockman’s. He talked about how they met three decades ago as rookie wardens at a state facility in Lubbock, Texas. How horrified they had been at the conditions. The lack of resources. The dehumanizing treatment they witnessed. He threw in a little philosophy. Some Foucault. Some Bentham. And he pulled it all together to explain the foundation of Minerva Correctional. Named for the ancient goddess of wisdom and justice, among other things. Committed to seeing inmates for what they were: people. People who had made mistakes, for sure. Who had made bad choices. But who still had potential. Who could make a positive contribution. Who could have a future, given the right kind of environment and support. He described the vocational programs the company ran. The diet and exercise initiatives they had introduced. The proactive health screening they provided at all five of their locations. He backed up his examples with statistics. Some may even have been accurate. He claimed dramatic increases in post-release employment rates. A profound drop in recidivism. And he finished by tying everything back to Friday. The jewel in Minerva’s crown. The sponsored appeal scheme for well-behaved inmates who could credibly claim to be victims of miscarried justice.

Hix paused to give his concluding point some extra emphasis, then rested his palms on the table, leaned forward, and said, “Questions?”

Hix always got asked about a bunch of mundane details. The identity of his investors. Recruitment. Employment practices. Visitation rights. Violence. The presence of gangs. He figured there would be something about the environment and the impact of Minerva’s operations, too. That had become a hot potato of late. And there could be some wild cards. Spicier issues, which may or may not come up, depending on the feistiness of the audience. Issues like the morality of profiting from other people’s incarceration. Whether enough was being done to prevent the sexual abuse of vulnerable inmates. Evidence of racial bias among the guards. Things that required a little more thought and finesse.

Within a quarter of an hour the five journalists sitting close to Hix had ticked all the usual boxes. Hix had tried to make it sound like he had never heard their types of questions before. Like he was interested in them. He gave what he thought would be his final answer and was about to wind the session up when the sixth journalist sprang into life. The one at the far end of the table. He was the youngest of the group. He had a round, plump face, straggly blond hair, and was dressed in faded clothes from an army surplus store. Like a wannabe Che Guevara in need of a hat and a dye job, Hix thought. And some focus. Until that point the guy had shown little interest in anything going on around him. He had shown little sign of being awake.

“The death rate in Minerva’s prisons is shocking,” the guy said. “Why is it so high?”

Hix glanced down at Brockman and paused for a moment. Then he wet his lips and said, “The mortality rate at our centers is not high. What makes you think otherwise?”

Brockman slipped his phone out of his pocket. He held it low down, next to his leg, so no one could see him tap out a message with his thumb.

The Guevara guy said, “I have my sources.”

“Which you can’t reveal?” Hix said.

“Correct.”

Hix smiled. “You’re fishing, aren’t you, my friend? Well, you’re casting your hook in the wrong pond. The health and life expectancy of our inmates is significantly better than at comparable institutions. And that’s not down to chance. Or luck. It’s thanks to our unique, progressive, humanitarian policies. If fate leads you down the unfortunate path to incarceration, a Minerva facility is where you want to end up. There’s no question about that.”

“You’re saying your death rate isn’t sky high?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“You have the data to back it up?”

“Of course.”

“Then why don’t you publish it?”

“To what end? There’s nothing to see.”

“You should publish it anyway. For transparency.”

“We publish everything we’re required to by state and federal law.”

“Which is a fraction of what state and federal facilities have to publish.”

Hix shrugged. “We don’t make the law. We just comply with it. Scrupulously.”

“You’re using it as a smokescreen. You have a serious drug problem in your jails and you’re trying to hide it. Whenever an inmate overdoses and has to go to the hospital, you pass it off as some kind of preventative measure coming from your so-called humanitarianism. You’ve gotten good at hiding the truth about the ones who recover. But when they die? That’s where the real story is, right?”

“Wrong. Look, can I hand on heart say there won’t be a single drug taken in any of our facilities today? No. We live in the real world. I’m not naïve. But when it comes to drugs, just like everything else, Minerva is streets ahead of every other operator in helping and protecting our inmates. The idea that addicts are dying in droves in our care is ridiculous.”

“Prove it. Show us the data.”

“I–”

There was a hard rap on the door behind Hix and the guard who had been watching the group came back into the room. He said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but there’s a phone call for you.”

“Tell whoever it is I’ll call them back. I’m busy here.”

“It’s the governor, sir.”

“Oh. What does he want?”

“He didn’t say. Just that it was urgent.”

“OK. I guess I shouldn’t keep him waiting, then. Could you help these good folks find their way to the exit?”

The guard nodded. “Happy to.”

Hix turned back to the journalists. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to draw a line at this point. Which is a shame because I was really enjoying the debate. My friend at the end of the table, I’ll get you those mortality numbers. Assuming our legal guys give me the green light. We have to be careful about privileged information, SEC regulations, things like that. And I’ll also have a word with one of our inmates. See if he’ll talk to you. When Minerva took this place over the guy had something going on with one of his eyes. Damon and I had seen the same thing with a prisoner years ago, when we were working for a different corrections provider. That company wouldn’t bring in a doctor because of the cost. They didn’t provide insurance. The condition got worse and worse, and long story short the prisoner was left completely blind. The same would have happened to our guy, only we got him proactive treatment. Now he’s an artist. He paints watercolors. Some of them are on display in a gallery in Jackson. He can give you the real scoop on our humanitarian policies. With no dead junkies involved. I guarantee.”

Sam Roth’s apartment building looked just like all the others on its block. Two stories. Stone fronted. Solid but plain. Nice but ordinary. There was nothing to suggest a man had died there within the last thirty-six hours.

Maybe from natural causes.

Maybe not.

Detective Harewood said Roth’s death was caused by a heart attack. There was nothing suspicious about that. People die from heart disease all the time. Nearly seven hundred thousand people every year in the United States. More than the population of Vermont. More than one every forty-six seconds.

If heart disease had been the only factor Reacher might not have been so skeptical. If Roth had not been fit and accustomed to exercise. If Harewood’s lieutenant had not been lazy. If Roth had not died hours before he was due to meet Angela St. Vrain. If Angela had not been murdered…

Too many ifs, Reacher thought. And too few answers.

Hannah’s hand was shaking when she tried to get the key into the lock on Roth’s door.

She said, “I’m sorry. This is the first time I’ve been here since…”

Reacher said, “It’s OK. You don’t have to come inside.”

“No.” Hannah closed her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath. “I’m doing this. For Sam. If his friend was murdered, he wouldn’t want people to think it was suicide. Angela has – had – a kid. And Sam was a prison guard. He wouldn’t want a murderer to go free.”

The main room of Roth’s apartment was laid out the same as Hannah’s. It had the same kind of furniture, maybe a decade older, a little more tired, with fewer colors. There was no TV and the top of one of the bookcases was filled with a line of framed photographs. Reacher could smell incense coming from somewhere, and right away the sense of trespass he always felt when he had to search a dead person’s home started to creep up his spine.

Hannah started toward an archway at the side of the kitchen area but paused when she drew level with the bookcase. She looked down at the photographs. They were all of her. There was a whole series. She was wearing the same gi in each one. In the first picture she had a white belt. By the last, the belt was brown. Hannah stretched out and flipped each photo in turn facedown. She said, “I can’t believe he kept those. He knew I hated them.” She sniffed and wiped a tear from her cheek.

Reacher said, “Do you still train?”

Hannah shook her head. “Not much. I haven’t graded since I moved next door. I only started as a way for Sam and me to go to the gym together. Working out is so boring. He was always nagging me to step it up again.”

Another tear welled up in the corner of Hannah’s eye. She blinked it away and began to move again. Through the archway. It led to a doglegged staircase that opened onto a corridor with three more doors. The first one was open a crack. Hannah pushed it the rest of the way and stepped into Roth’s bedroom. It was a small space. Tidy. Impersonal. The bed was made. There was no clothing strewn around. No shoes on the floor. No pictures on the walls. Just a book on the nightstand and a glass of water. The blinds were drawn. There were mirrors on the closet doors, which were closed. And in the far corner there was a small desk. It was made of metal and wood, and looked like it could fold down when not in use. There was no chair.

“Not much of an office space.” Hannah took a silver laptop computer from the desk and sat down on the bed. “The other room’s full of his weights and workout stuff. That was more important to him.”

Hannah opened the computer and started tapping away on the keyboard and dragging her finger up and down on a little shiny rectangle below it. After a couple of minutes she turned the screen so that Reacher could see.

She said, “This is weird. There are no emails from Angela. Plenty from other people. Even a bunch of spam he never got rid of. But none from her. Not even from years ago. None in his inbox. None in any of his folders. And none in the trash. Which is extra weird because Sam had his mail set to keep deleted messages in the trash for a week. I just checked.”

“Are there any emails from Danny Peel?”

Hannah tapped and swiped and clicked for another minute, then nodded her head. “A few. Mostly from before Danny moved.”

“So what happened to the messages from Angela?”

“Sam must have found a way to permanently delete them. Instantly. I just can’t see why he’d do that.”

“Could an expert recover them?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Can you tell if it was definitely Sam who deleted them?”

“No one else had access to his computer. He never takes it anywhere. It’s a laptop, but he only bought it because it’s small. Not to carry around.”

“Could they be deleted remotely?”

“I don’t know. I’m no expert. They could probably be wiped off the central server remotely, I guess. But after he downloaded them? Maybe some high-level hacker could do it. Probably not a regular person.”

“Have you noticed anyone hanging around the building the last few days? Any cars you didn’t recognize?”

“Why are you asking that again? You think someone broke in here after Sam died and wiped his computer?”

Reacher said nothing.

“Oh.” Hannah slowly closed the computer. “No. You think he was murdered? Like Angela was? No way.”

“Angela was murdered on her way to meet him. In secret. Probably with some critical evidence to show him. Even if Sam believed it was suicide, he had still seen Angela’s emails. He knew something was going on. He knew what kind of material she was bringing. That paints a pretty big target on his back.”

“No. It was totally natural causes. I saw him, remember. I found him.”

“Heart attacks can be faked. There are drugs. Chemicals.”

“Not in this case. Because you know the really sad thing? When I saw him, I wasn’t even surprised.”

“I heard he was in good health. Ripped, Harewood said.”

“He worked out a lot, yes. Too much, actually. It’s how he dealt with stress. But healthy? Not so much.”

“Sam was stressed?”

“He had a stressful job.”

“He had that job for thirty years.”

“The stress had gotten worse.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“New boss? Staff cuts? Some kind of disciplinary situation?”

“None of those things. He was just … having trouble. He didn’t say anything but I know him. Knew him. Knew the signs. He wasn’t eating properly. He wasn’t sleeping. He was working out too much. Pushing himself too hard. I should have done more to help him. He was a heart attack waiting to happen and I knew it.”

“So he was stressed. More than usual. But how did that cause Angela’s emails to disappear?”

“Maybe that was done remotely, like you said.” Hannah was silent for a moment, then she frowned. “Wait. Sam had dinner at my place Monday night. I was trying to get him to eat more. It didn’t work. He just picked at his food then rushed off home. To work out. Again. What else would he be doing these days? I wasn’t happy but I gave him a good-night kiss, like I always do. At the door. And across the way I kind of think I might have seen a car. Yes. I remember thinking it must be an Uber waiting for someone, but that it was weird because its lights were off.”

“What color was it?”

“Something dark. Black, I think.”

“Make? Model?”

“I’m not sure. I couldn’t see too well because of Sam’s truck.”

Reacher thought for a moment. It hadn’t rained that morning. The previous day had been dry, too. But Monday night was an unknown quantity. It had been fine earlier in the day, when he walked into town. But he had spent the evening with Alexandra. At her apartment. The weather was the last thing he was paying attention to. Still, if a vehicle had been parked for any length of time it could have left a trace of some kind. It was worth a look. So Reacher said, “Come on. Show me where the car was waiting.”

The sky gradually brightened and the Greyhound bus continued to thump and rumble its way east. It crossed the rest of Arizona, cut the corner of New Mexico, and dropped diagonally down into Texas. With every mile Jed Starmer grew more accustomed to its sounds. He became less likely to be disturbed. But also less tired due to all his hours of sleep, so one effect balanced out the other, meaning that it took him around the same length of time to wake up when the bus stopped in El Paso as it had done in Phoenix.

Jed drifted to the surface, looked around and located the depot sign. He checked his watch. They were bang on schedule. So they would be in El Paso for an hour and five minutes. It was lunchtime and he wouldn’t get another decent break until they got to Dallas in the early hours of the next morning. Which meant it made sense to get out and find some food. He was starving, but he felt more energetic than the last time he woke up. He slid across onto the seat next to the aisle. Some of the other passengers were already outside, wandering about. He waited for an elderly couple to shuffle by, then stood up and started toward the door. Then he stopped again. He didn’t have his backpack. It hadn’t been on his lap. He hadn’t been hugging it. He hadn’t wanted to look like a little kid. So he’d put it on the seat next to him. Before he fell asleep. But now it wasn’t on the seat. It wasn’t on the floor. It wasn’t in the luggage rack. It was nowhere. It was gone.

Jed remembered the guy in the bus station in L.A. The surfer-looking dude who had found his ticket when he dropped it. The guy had warned him. Told him to hang on to his bag. To keep his arm through the strap when he slept. He should have listened. He should have…

Jed spotted the backpack. It was outside the bus. A guy was carrying it. He was moving quickly, along the concourse between the piers. He was almost at the depot exit. Jed started to rush down the aisle but almost at once he had to slow down. Nearly to a standstill. The old couple was in the way. Dawdling. Creeping along. It was like they were experimenting to see how slowly it was possible for human beings to move without their feet fusing with the floor. Jed hovered along behind them until they reached the door. They climbed down. Jed jumped out. He ran to the exit. There was no sign of the guy with his backpack. Then Jed caught a glimpse of him. Through a car window. A cab. The guy was reclining in the backseat. He was cradling the backpack. Its top flap was pressing against the glass.

The cab was twenty yards away. Jed ran toward it. He waved. He yelled. The cab accelerated. Jed jumped. He screamed. He kept on running. But the cab just moved faster and faster until it was gone from Jed’s sight.

Jed was left on the sidewalk, doubled over, out of breath. He was alone in a strange town, hundreds of miles from the only place he had ever thought of as home. All his worldly goods were gone. His dream of a new life was shattered. Tears blurred his vision. He slid his hand into his pocket. His fingers searched for coins. If he could find a quarter he could call his foster mother. Beg her to come and get him. To take him back. To save him.

Jed could call.

Whether his foster mother would answer was a whole other question.

Jed Starmer stood at the edge of the sidewalk and pulled a handful of change out of his pocket. He had three quarters plus a bunch of smaller coins. They added up to more than two dollars. But Jed didn’t care about the total. What counted was that he could make a call. He could get himself out of the mess he had landed in. Or at least try.

Jed figured there would be some payphones at the Greyhound station so he turned and started to make his way back there. He moved quickly at first, then slowed down and started to look around. He had been so focused on chasing the cab that the guy who had stolen his backpack had taken, he hadn’t paid any attention to his surroundings. The street he was on was long and flat. The Greyhound station was far ahead, on the right. Closer, opposite him on his left, there was a weird-looking building. It was pale yellow with smooth, rounded walls. It was tall. It had no windows and its top was cut off at a steep angle. The high side was nearest him and the roof fell away sharply toward the back. It made him think of a cake, or a hat a bishop might wear in a sci-fi movie.

Around the base of the building there was a ring of sculptures. They were made of steel, all curved interlocking shapes, gleaming in the sunshine like flames. Or scimitar blades. They reminded Jed of a place back in L.A. Some kind of a fancy concert hall. He’d never been inside it but the exterior fascinated him. It was made of shiny metal, too, and the whole surface was twisted and warped like it was melting. Like a localized apocalypse was taking place. Or a scene from a fever dream. Or a sign he was going crazy. He had always found it a little menacing. Like so much in his hometown.

If L.A. still was his hometown.

A set of steps ran up to a concourse that separated the round building from a similar, shorter, wider one. Jed climbed up. He paused at the top then walked around to the far side. There was a low wall, presumably to stop pedestrians from falling down onto the street below. Jed perched on the edge. He lined up his coins on the rough concrete surface. Then he took away all of them except the quarters. Three metal circles. Dull with age. Scuffed from use. Innocuous, everyday items. But with the power to shape his future.

Jed had to decide. He could put the coins back in his pocket. Or he could feed them into a phone.

He could go forward. Or back.

Grab a new life. Or settle for his old one.

Twelve hundred miles away, in Winson, Mississippi, it was time for Curtis Riverdale to get busy.

Riverdale was an anomaly within the Minerva corporation. An outlier. He was unusual because he was in his post when the prison got taken over. Minerva’s standard procedure was to sideline the existing warden when a new site was bought. Shift him into some kind of impotent, figurehead position. Wait for the boredom and humiliation to eat away at him until he found a job somewhere else. And if he tried to stick it out, fire him, hot on the heels of a third of his staff.

The process had gotten under way as usual. A bunch of new guards had been drafted in. Proven Minerva people from the company’s other facilities. Tailor made to slot in place of the guys who’d just been discarded. The new warden was installed at the same time. A tall, skinny forty-year-old who dressed like a banker and spoke like a radio host. He did all the usual new-boss things to prove he could walk and talk at the same time. But he didn’t settle in Winson. He kept getting sick. He spent more time in the hospital than at work. After six months he couldn’t take it anymore. He quit. And during the new guy’s many absences Riverdale took the opportunity to step back up. He proved himself invaluable. Adaptable. Discreet. Able to fit into Minerva’s mode of operation in a way Hix had never seen in a warden his company had inherited.

Some correctional corporations treat the business of incarceration as if they were supermarkets. They take a kind of pile-them-high, sell-them-cheap approach. But Minerva wasn’t like that. Right from the start Hix and Brockman had a different view of what they did. They saw themselves as being more like prospectors in the Old West. Their goal was the same. To sort the gold from the dirt. Only they didn’t use shovels and buckets and sieves. They had a system. One they had devised themselves. They had refined it. Improved it. And they used it to sift through the constant stream of inmates sent by the states they had contracts with.

The process started with the freshly convicted. The new fish. Lawyers evaluated their cases. Accountants reviewed their finances. Genealogists traced their family trees. Then aptitude tests were administered. Inmates with certain skills and talents were identified. Psychologists were brought in to assess their personalities. The suitable ones were selected. The rest were sent to the doctors along with the other prisoners. A whole bunch of screening procedures were carried out. Treatments were prescribed wherever necessary. And after each individual was fully scrutinized and categorized, it was decided which facility to send them to.

The first category of prisoner had the potential for their convictions to be quashed, either for PR or for profit. They were distributed evenly throughout Minerva’s sites. The second had no special potential. This was the largest group by far. The corporation’s bread and butter. Dull, but necessary. Most of its members went to Minerva’s older prisons but some were brought to Winson for appearance’s sake. The third category was smaller. More interesting. All its members came to Winson. And the fourth category was smaller still. It wasn’t interesting, exactly. But it was lucrative. Often there was only one person in it on any given day. Sometimes there were two. Sometimes there were none at all.

That afternoon there was a single prisoner in the fourth category. He was housed all alone in Unit S1. The segregation unit that was still selectively operational. So that was where Riverdale started his rounds. He had arrangements to make. Personnel to organize. Processing. Packaging. Distribution. There was a whole complex operation to keep on the rails.

That was assuming everything went according to plan on Friday. If not the place would be mothballed. Indefinitely. And a lot of Minerva staff would find themselves on their way to other prisons. Where they would wind up on the other side of the bars.

Curtis Riverdale spent more than an hour in Unit S1. He checked that everything would be ready for Friday afternoon. The equipment. The right people, with the right specialized skills. And he verified the arrangements for transport. That was the part that worried him the most. It made him nervous because it wasn’t under his direct control. In his gut he would have liked to run the whole operation. The entire show, from soup to nuts. But in his head he understood the value of compartmentalization. It was better all-around if no one at Minerva knew where the packages they sent out were going to end up. And it was better still if the guys who dealt with the final customers had no idea where the merchandise came from. The last thing Riverdale wanted was for the mess to land on Minerva’s doorstep if anyone down the line wound up with a bad outcome.

When Riverdale was finally satisfied he left S1 and started toward the first of the three general population units. The one that housed the most interesting inmates. He set out at speed but when he was halfway along the fenced-in walkway that connected the buildings he paused for a moment. He had realized something. If everything went according to plan on Friday it would be the first time a prisoner had moved from one category to another. It would be the first time. And, he hoped, the last. All it did was increase the risk they ran. For no good reason. And in Riverdale’s opinion, unnecessary risks should always be avoided.

Some people within the Minerva corporation misinterpreted Riverdale’s attitude. Damon Brockman was one of them. He took it as a sign that Riverdale was timid. Cautious. Even cowardly. He didn’t see that Riverdale was just a survivor. He was on to a good thing at Winson. He had worked hard for the opportunities his job offered him. And he was ready and willing to defend his position. To do whatever was necessary to save his skin.

If Brockman had been quicker he could have gotten a different perspective on the whole situation. He could have talked to the warden he had brought in to replace Riverdale. If only the new guy had paid more attention to the food that was brought to him from the prison kitchen. To its subtle, extra layer of flavor.

The food that was brought to him exclusively by members of Riverdale’s old guard.

Damon Brockman was not the kind of guy who readily changed his mind.

When he first heard that someone might have looked in the envelope Angela St. Vrain ran off to Colorado with he didn’t see a problem. He still didn’t. But neither was he the kind of guy who exposed himself to unnecessary criticism. In his experience there was only one thing worse than something going wrong on his watch. That was getting the blame for it going wrong. And the only thing worse than getting the blame was when someone had previously warned you of the danger. Publicly. When they could say, I told you so. Especially when that person was your boss. When they could punish you for it. When they could hit you for it in the pocket. So even though Brockman still thought the chances of Reacher showing up and causing trouble in Winson were close to zero he decided to act as if the danger was real.

First, he brought forward the time that the sentries were due to be in position. Bruno Hix had asked for them to be posted by 6:00 a.m., Thursday. Brockman changed that to 3:00 a.m.

Second, he added an extra pair of sentries. Hix had asked for two guys to cover the Greyhound station in Jackson. Brockman put a couple more at the stop the local bus from Jackson to Winson left from. Plenty of people who visited the prison used that service, which made it the kind of thing anyone new to the area without their own transport might latch onto.

Third, he went into what-if mode. Hix had already tried to cover every possibility but Brockman wanted to narrow the odds. To back one horse rather than spread his bets across the whole field. He asked himself, what would he do if he had to get across the country with very few resources? The answer was obvious. He would steal a car. That would be quick and easy. It would be nicer and more comfortable than the Greyhound bus. And it would be safer than hitching a ride. There were all kinds of crazy people out there, preying on the broke and the homeless. He knew that for a fact. Minerva made a bunch of money out of confining them after they got caught.

The only danger involved with stealing a car was that unless you lucked out in some unexpected way the owner would notice the vehicle was missing. He would dial 911. And if the police caught you it would be game over, right there and then. So, to mitigate the risk you would need to switch plates. You could steal some alternatives. Which came with dangers of its own. So it would be better to clone a set. Or to have some random fake ones made. Which would be difficult for a person with limited means.

Brockman started to feel better. Car theft was the best option, but it was likely to be off the table for Reacher. Then he started to feel worse. He thought of Curtis Riverdale, of all people. Of something he had said. About Reacher being a former military cop. Some kind of a crack investigator. Reacher had witnessed Angela St. Vrain’s accident. He had spoken to the police in the town. Maybe he had caught the local news. He could have picked up on Sam Roth’s death. He could have connected the dots.

There was no danger of Reacher finding any evidence that led back to Minerva. Brockman was sure about that. But there was another problem. Dead men can’t report car thefts.

Brockman took out his phone and hit the speed-dial for Rod Moseley. The chief of the local police department.

Moseley answered on the first ring. “What now? Tell me you have good news for a change.”

Brockman said, “It’s about Sam Roth. The other guy we offed in Colorado. We need to know the make and model of his vehicle.”

Reacher woke himself up at a quarter past five, Thursday morning. He took a shower. Got dressed. And was outside the hotel by ten to six, as agreed. Hannah Hampton was not. And neither was Sam Roth’s truck.

Reacher considered going inside and asking the guy behind the reception counter what time Hannah had checked out. Then he thought better of it. There was no point. Whether she had left five minutes or five hours before him, he wouldn’t be able to catch up to her without a vehicle. And even if he could, he wouldn’t. This was a volunteer-only operation. If Hannah was having second thoughts, it was better she didn’t come along. It would be a mistake to take her.

There were no vehicles at the gas station on the other side of the street so Reacher started to walk. The highway was only a quarter of a mile away. He figured he could hitch a ride when he got to the intersection. There was usually plenty of truck traffic early in the morning, before the roads got too busy. He hoped there would be at least one driver who could use some company. Who was looking for a little gas money. Or a little conversation to help him stay awake after a long night at the wheel.

The sun was starting to rise but the landscape looked no more inviting than it had the evening before. It was still flat. Still parched and brown. Still featureless. Reacher figured he must have covered a couple of hundred yards but the scene was so vast and so uniform it was like he hadn’t moved at all. He pressed on, a little faster. Then he stopped. He heard a sound behind him. An engine. A diesel. Rattling and clanking like a train.

Hannah Hampton pulled up at the side of the road and buzzed down the passenger window.

She said, “What’s going on? Why did you leave without me?”

Reacher said, “I figured you left without me.”

Hannah checked her watch. “But it’s not six yet. We said we’d meet at six.”

Reacher shrugged. “Old habits. On time is late where I’m from. Anyway, where did you go? This isn’t much of a place for an early morning joyride.”

“To get coffee.” Hannah pointed at two giant to-go mugs that were jammed into holders in the center console. “I thought you liked it. The machine wasn’t cleaned in the station across the street. The morning guy was late. He hadn’t gotten to it, yet. So I had to drive to the other place. It’s like a mile away. Was I wrong?”

“Absolutely not.” Reacher opened the door and climbed in. “I do like coffee. And it makes for a much better greeting than last time you picked me up. That’s for sure.”

The only promise Lev Emerson had to make was that he wouldn’t burn the building down.

That was the opposite of the kind of condition Emerson usually signed up to but in the circumstances it made sense. He needed access to some premises. Something secluded. Where no one would hear anything. Or see anything. Or smell anything. Somewhere that was robust. Industrial. He was in a strange city. And he was in a hurry. So he had called the client he had just done the job for in Savannah. The guy owned a vintage warehouse in St. Louis. It was vacant, near the river, with no active businesses close by. Emerson already knew about the place. He remembered it because the guy had once hired him to torch a neighbor’s property.

When Emerson’s contact came around from the chloroform he was lying flat on his back. He was naked. And he was in the middle of a cold concrete floor. He could smell a slight hint of gasoline. He could see walls in the distance. Made of brick. They looked ancient. A pale, chalky coating was flaking off them. The ceiling was high above him. It was stained from water leaks, and it was supported by rusty metal beams.

The guy’s arms and legs were stretched out to his sides. He tried to move them but he couldn’t. Because his wrists and ankles were cable-tied to six-inch stubs of steel that were sprouting from the ground. There were rows and rows of them. They were all that was left of the giant sets of shelves that had been removed and melted down when the storage business which had inhabited the building had been abandoned. The guy pulled with all his might. The plastic strips dug into his skin but the metal stubs didn’t even flex.

Emerson was standing on one side of the guy. Graeber was on the other. Near the guy’s feet there was a large plastic barrel. And lying on the barrel there was a ladle. The kind they use in restaurants to serve out bowls of soup.

Emerson crouched down and waited for the guy to turn his head and look at him. Then he said, “Let’s not beat around the bush. I know about you. I obviously know about your ship. So the purpose of today is for you to fill in the remaining blank.”

The guy’s throat was dry. He managed to say, “What blank?”

Emerson said, “I want to know who your supplier is.”

The guy’s eyes stretched wide. “I don’t know. I can’t tell you.”

Emerson straightened up and crossed to the barrel. He took the ladle in one hand. Removed the lid with the other. Scooped out a big dollop of thick, cream-colored gel. Crossed back to the guy. And poured the gel all over the guy’s genitals.

The guy screamed and bucked and thrashed around. “Stop! What are you doing? What is that stuff?”

Emerson said, “I could tell you its chemical name but it wouldn’t mean anything to you. Have you seen Apocalypse Now?”

“What? Why?”

“Because the name you’ll know it by is napalm.”

“No. Seriously? What the…”

“It’s my own version. Better than the military kind. The key is not skimping on the benzene. The original formula only burns for a few seconds. Mine stays alight for ten minutes. Think about that. Do you feel how it’s sticking to your skin?”

The guy wriggled and bounced and tried to fling the gel away from his body. It was heavy, like glue. A little came off but the bulk remained stubbornly attached.

Emerson took a box of matches from his pocket. “So. Tell me. Where does your organization get its inventory from?”

The guy stopped moving. He was struggling for breath. “We have a few sources. We get different things from different places.”

“Start with what you got for my son. Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know. Honestly. I only have a contact. I tell him what we need. If he can get it, he does. I don’t know who he works for. That’s the way the system is set up. For security. Just like he doesn’t know who I work for.”

“His name?”

“Carpenter. That’s what he told me. It might not be his real name.”

“Contact information?”

“It’s in my phone. I’ll give it to you. But listen. This is the truth. Four weeks ago Carpenter dropped out of sight. He might have quit. The FBI might have gotten to him. I don’t know. But if you can’t reach him, don’t think I was lying to you.”

Graeber picked the guy’s pants up off the floor and pulled a phone out of one of the pockets. He said, “Passcode?”

The guy reeled off a series of numbers.

Graeber hit a few keys then said, “Carpenter? You have a picture of him. Is this a joke?”

The guy said, “He didn’t know. It was in case I ever needed leverage. It’s redundant now, anyway.”

Emerson said, “Who cares about a picture if the guy’s disappeared? How do we get around him?”

The guy said, “You can’t. He was my only contact.”

“So how are you placing your orders?”

“We’re not. We can’t. Not until a replacement gets in touch. We’re using alternative suppliers right now.”

“How did you pay Carpenter?”

“Cash, at first. Recently, bitcoin. It’s untraceable.”

“Who collects the merchandise? Where from?”

The guy missed a beat. “I don’t know where from.”

“So you do know who.”

The guy didn’t answer.

Emerson took a match out of the box.

“OK! We use a transport guy. Out of Vicksburg, Mississippi. His name’s Lafferty. He’s a one-man band. A specialist.”

“Address?”

“In my phone.”

“Good. Now, is there anything else you want to tell us?”

“No. Nothing. I’ve told you everything. More than I should have done. So please, let me go.”

“First things first. The shipment that went to my son. You arranged that? You were a link in that chain?”

The guy closed his eyes and nodded. Just a very slight motion.

Emerson said, “Let me hear it.”

The guy opened his eyes again and said, “Yes. I arranged it. Can I go now? If it’s a refund you want, I can make that happen. I’m the only one who can.”

Emerson took a ladleful of gel and poured it on the guy’s stomach. He took another and poured it on his chest. Graeber put the lid back on the barrel and rolled it to the exit. Then Emerson struck a match.

“A refund?” Emerson said. “No. But you can go. Like my son had to go when you were done with him. Only you get to go quicker. And with maybe a little more pain.”

Some people pick hotels more or less at random. Other people are more careful. They take all kinds of different factors into account. The price. The location. The amenities. The ambience. The discretion of the staff, depending on what they’re planning to do while they’re there. And who they’re planning to do it with.

Emerson and Graeber paid a great deal of attention to their choice of hotel in St. Louis that Thursday. But for them only one thing mattered. It was all about the parking lot. It had to be large. And it had to be shaped in such a way that at least some of the spaces were positioned well away from the main building. Graeber spent a good half hour with his phone after they left the warehouse. He used a few different review sites until he found a place he thought was suitable. Then he switched to his favorite mapping app and pinched and zoomed and swiped until he had double-checked it from all angles. It looked promising on the screen. But when they arrived on-site they figured that half of the lot must have been sold since the satellite pictures they had seen were taken. Now the section they had been interested in was surrounded by contractors’ hoardings emblazoned with computer simulations of a new office building.

Emerson and Graeber moved on to their second choice of hotel. The parking lot was smaller but it was early enough in the day for plenty of spaces to be vacant. Graeber pulled the van into the most isolated of them and Emerson walked across to reception. He booked one room. He paid for the whole night but he knew they would be leaving at half past one in the morning. That would give them time to get to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and still have about an hour for surveillance before the delivery guy they’d learned about showed up for work. The schedule left them with twelve hours to fill. Emerson figured they should use it to get some rest. They’d had an early start. A long drive from Chicago. Followed by a busy morning. So they would split the time into four shifts. Then take turns, one of them in the room and one in the van. The room would be more comfortable. But the van was more important. Its contents were too valuable to be left unattended. And they would be too hard to explain away if anyone in authority found them.

The same time Jed Starmer was exiting the dusty station wagon, Hannah Hampton and Jack Reacher were leaving Louisiana and entering the state of Mississippi. They were at the midpoint of the Vicksburg Bridge, a hundred feet above the river, on I-20, heading east. As they had been for the last five and a half hours, not including stops for diesel and coffee.

Reacher was driving. He wasn’t thrilled about that. He certainly hadn’t volunteered. Being driven suited his temperament much better. Anyone else on the road who looked into Sam Roth’s truck during the first four hundred miles they covered that day would have said Hannah’s companion was pretty much comatose. He was lying back in his seat, not moving. Except for his eyes, which just flickered open every now and again. And that was only so he could get a fix on their current position. At first their surroundings were flat and featureless with nothing to see apart from an occasional water tower or utilitarian metal shed at the edge of the arrow-straight road. Then a few trees and bushes appeared between the scrubby fields. The land began to gently rise in a few places and fall away in others. After they passed Dallas the sky became a little bluer. The grass, a little greener. The stands of roadside trees thickened up after they crossed into Louisiana. The farmland grew more lush and fertile. Reacher was enjoying the slow motion, magic lantern impression of the landscape as it steadily unspooled outside his window. He would have been happy to file the snapshots away in his memory and save his energy for whatever was waiting for him in Winson. When he would no longer be a passenger. But when Hannah handed him the keys after they stopped at a rest area he figured it would be rude to refuse. And unsafe. There were dark circles under her eyes. Her shoulders were sagging. She struggled to heave the truck’s massive door open against a sudden gust of wind, and she was fast asleep before they made it back onto the highway.

Another bridge spanned the river a stone’s throw away to the north. An older one. It was all solid piles and cantilevered girders with giant rivets and flags flying from the highest points. Reacher recognized it. He had been shown pictures of it, and the river flowing beneath it, when he was a kid in a classroom on a military base on the other side of the world. Before the bridge they were crossing that day was even built. But not in a lesson about engineering, or geography. The idea was that the children were supposed to chant one Mississippi, two Mississippi to help them measure out the seconds. Reacher couldn’t understand why. Even at that young age he was able to keep track of time in his head. So he ignored the official topic and focused on the bridge. It looked solid. Purposeful. Dependable. The way a properly designed structure should be. It only carried trains now. And it was a little worse for wear. Its paint was peeling. Its iron skeleton was streaked with rust. But it was still standing. Still functional. It had once been revered. Now it was surplus to requirements. That was a story Reacher knew well.

A hundred yards beyond the end of the bridge Reacher saw a sign for a truck stop. It claimed to be the largest in Mississippi. Reacher hoped that was true. And he hoped it reflected the scope of the facilities, not just the size of the parking lot. It was time for him to get a change of clothes and none of the previous places they visited had any in his size.

Hannah woke up when Reacher switched off the engine. The sleep had left her feeling brighter so they walked across the parking lot together, toward the main building. It was shaped like a bow tie. The entrance led into a square, central section that contained the restrooms, and showers for the truck drivers. The triangular area on the left was set up as a food court, with chairs and tables clustered in the center and three different outlets spread out around the edges. There was a pizza restaurant on one of the angled sides. A place selling fried chicken on the other. And a burger joint that took up the whole of the base. The store filled the entire area to the right, with shelves and racks and display cases scattered about in no discernible order.

Hannah went through the doors first and started toward the bathrooms but Reacher took her elbow and steered her into the store.

Hannah said, “What, you can’t pick out a pair of pants on your own?”

Reacher checked over his shoulder and said, “You have a phone?”

“Of course. You want to call someone?”

“Does it take pictures?”

“Of course. All phones do these days.”

“Do you hold it up to your eye, like a camera?”

Hannah laughed. “You hold it out in front. You see the image on the whole screen. Much better than a tiny viewfinder. Why?”

“There’s a guy by the counter of the chicken place. He’s lurking around like he’s waiting for an order to come out. But he was actually watching the entrance. And he did something with his phone. He held it out in front and moved it, like he was tracking me with it when we came in.”

“Move your arm to the side, just an inch?” Hannah peered through the gap between Reacher’s biceps and his torso. “White guy, buzzed hair, T-shirt, jeans?”

Reacher nodded.

“He’s still there. Another guy’s with him. They look like gym buddies. He still has his phone in his hand. He keeps staring at it, like he’s waiting for a message. Maybe they’re supposed to be meeting someone? Who’s running late for some reason and hasn’t gotten in touch to let them know?”

Reacher shook his head. “He didn’t raise the phone until he saw me. Then he pointed it right at me.”

“Are you sure? You really think he took your picture? Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know.” Reacher turned around. “Let’s ask him.”

It was a question of balance.

The question arose because the spectators at the next day’s ceremony would be divided into two groups. Those who showed up in person. And those who would watch remotely. On TV. Or online. The problem was how to look good to both sets of people. If he remained too static he would appear stiff and wooden to the live crowd. But if he was too animated he would come across as a maniac on the screen. The cameras would have to jerk around to keep him in the frame. It would look like he was having a fit. No one told him to his face – everyone said his speech was a triumph – but that’s what Bruno Hix believed had happened the last time an innocent man was released. Because he had gotten carried away. He had been feeding off the energy from his audience. Lapping it up. He had overindulged. Like with any great feast, it felt good in the moment. But the aftermath was no fun at all. And thanks to the likes of YouTube, the aftermath would live forever online.

The solution lay in better preparation. Hix knew that. He had already memorized his words. He was going to knock the content right out of the park. He had no doubt about that. He just needed to work on the delivery. To make sure he hit both targets simultaneously. The real and the virtual. That would be no mean feat. So he had devised a new system. A combination of old technology and new. He had started by getting the prison’s maintenance crew to install giant mirrors on one wall of the conference room. He had them build a mock-up of the stage at the opposite end. Then he had two small video cameras delivered. They were designed for people who did active sports. Things like skiing and mountain biking and kayaking. Hix didn’t care about how shockproof they were. He wasn’t interested in their underwater performance. But there was one feature he figured would be essential. They were voice activated. So he set one on a regular tripod by his side and aimed it at the mirror to capture the kind of distant view the crowd would get. He set the other on a mini tripod sitting right on his lectern. It was pointing straight at his face. Cropped in tight, the way the news guys would do it. His plan was to give the command to record, which would set both cameras going simultaneously. Run through his speech, several times, with different expressions and gestures and degrees of movement. Then he would play the footage back, both feeds side by side on his computer screen, and settle on the best combination.

Hix had blocked out two hours in his diary. He had told his assistant that unless the prison went on lockdown he was not to be disturbed. He climbed up on the practice stage. He switched on the cameras. He was about to begin the recording. Then the conference room door swung open.

Hix turned and yelled, “What?”

Damon Brockman stepped into the room. He stayed well away from the stage and said, “You were right.”

Hix said, “Of course I was right.” He looked back into the lens of the lectern camera, opened his mouth, then paused. “Right about what?”

“The drifter from Colorado. Reacher. He was trying to come here.”

“Was?”

“The guys at the truck stop on I-20 are all over him.”

“They stopped him?”

“They got a positive ID.”

“So they saw him. I’m asking, did they stop him?”

“They’ve been on radio silence since they sent his picture. Probably busy keeping him on ice. I’ve sent Harold up there to help them.”

“Harold?”

“Harold Keane. The guys call him ‘Tiny.’ You’d recognize him if you saw him. He’s been with us ten years. We brought him over here from Atlanta. He’s six foot six. Three hundred pounds. All muscle. He won silver in America’s Strongest Man two years running when he worked for the Georgia state system.”

“Only silver?”

“Bruno, do me a favor. Don’t ever say that to his face.”

“He has a short fuse? Good. But it’ll take him a while to get up there. Send the guys from the Megamart as well. The intersection with US 61 is way closer.”

“Will do.”

“And you can stand the guys down from the Greyhound station in Jackson. No point leaving them there now.”

“I’ll text them. Let them know. What about the guys at the construction site on US 87?”

“Leave them for now. Just in case. Until we know for sure that Reacher’s safely under wraps.”

“Understood.”

“Good. Send the messages. Then why don’t you come back? Watch me rehearse for tomorrow?”

“You know, I’d love to. But I’m slammed with other stuff. There’s all kinds of craziness going on right now. So sadly I’ll just have to go ahead and pass on that very tempting offer.”

Five words were ringing in Jed Starmer’s ears as he crouched between a pair of dumpsters in an alley on the other side of the Greyhound station: I’m a law enforcement officer.

The guy’s voice had been a little muffled from where he lay on the floor of the car but Jed was sure about what he heard. Although he wasn’t sure what kind of officer the guy was. He hadn’t been wearing a uniform. Neither had his partner. So Jed figured they must be detectives. Or FBI agents. Something high up. Important. But he wasn’t too concerned about which organization they belonged to. Or what rank they held. He was just glad they had shown up when they did. He had no idea what the scruffy guys had wanted with him but it didn’t take a clairvoyant to see it wasn’t going to be anything good.

Jed was glad the officers had shown up, but at the same time he was horrified. Because it meant they must have been looking for him. That was certainly what it sounded like from the exchanges he overheard. The guy from his first bus must have called them. After they finished their breakfast in Dallas. He’d kept nagging Jed about going to the police. When Jed refused the guy must have taken matters into his own hands. Which meant Jed would have to change his plans. He had been intending to sleep on the seats in the Greyhound station that night and then make his way to Winson the next morning. He couldn’t risk staying in town now. Not in a public place. Not somewhere out in the open. He had no option. He had to leave. Immediately.

Bruno Hix started his speech three times.

He started. But he couldn’t finish. He couldn’t get beyond the first couple of lines. He was too distracted. All he could think about was the truck stop. He couldn’t help wondering what was happening up there. He’d sent four guys to take care of one drifter. That should have been a walk in the park. But there’d been no confirmation. No status reports. No news of any kind. And the drifter had already made fools out of the men he’d sent to Colorado.

Hix jumped down from the stage. He left the room and hurried along the corridor to the far end of the building’s other wing. To Brockman’s office. The door was closed. Hix didn’t knock. He just opened it and walked in. For a moment he thought Brockman wasn’t there. The desk chair was empty. The armchair was empty. Then he saw that Brockman was stretched out on the couch by the window. An abandoned coffee mug was on the floor by his side.

Hix folded his arms. “Busy, huh?”

Brockman opened his eyes. He sat up. “Very. I’m strategizing.”

“No news?”

“Actually, yes. There is. Good news. One of my previous strategies has borne fruit, big-time. We know how Reacher got to Mississippi so fast. He took a pickup belonging to Sam Roth. The guy Angela St. Vrain was on her way to see. He’s dead, obviously, so no one reported it stolen. The guys we moved over from the intersection located it in the truck stop parking lot.”

“They found a truck?”

“Correct.”

“Who cares about a truck? Where’s Reacher?”

“He must still be there.”

“Must be? You don’t know?”

“The truck’s still there. So Reacher must be, too. What’s he going to do – walk the rest of the way? So, Bruno, chill. Our guys are there. They’re staking it out. We’ll hear the moment they have him.”

“Call them. Right now. Put them on speaker.”

“You need to take a valium.” Brockman took out his phone and dialed a number. It rang. And rang. And rang. Until it tripped through to voicemail. Brockman hung up without leaving a message. He dialed another number. That call ended up with voicemail, too. Brockman forced a smile. “There’s nothing to worry about. They must have their phones on silent. To avoid giving their positions away. They’re being professional. That’s a good thing.”

“Try the other two.”

Brockman dialed again. This time there was no ring tone. The call went straight to voicemail. The same thing happened with the fourth number he tried. “Their batteries are probably flat. They’ve been there since 3:00 a.m., remember.”

“Something’s wrong.”

“Everything’s fine. Give it time. Be patient.”

“Did you order the guys back from Jackson?”

“Yes. Right after I left your office.”

“Call them again. Divert them to the truck stop as well.”

“Really? We need seven guys there?”

“We have four there already. Maybe five by now. Have they got the job done?”

Reacher was half expecting the truck to be gone when he got back from dumping the Mercury. He left it in the corner on the far side of the lot, tucked in at the side of a donation box for a clothing charity that didn’t look like it saw much action. Then he strolled back. He wanted Hannah to have plenty of time to think. To weigh her options. She had been through a lot in the last couple of days. Finding Sam Roth’s body. Learning that he had been murdered. Hearing that Angela St. Vrain had also been murdered. Almost getting murdered herself. Reacher wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d jumped into the driver’s seat the moment he was out of sight, headed for the highway, and put as many miles between them as humanly possible.

Hannah pulled the truck over onto the shoulder when the GPS in her phone said they were half a mile from the start of the construction zone. Reacher opened the passenger door and climbed out. Hannah had the pack of emergency flares on her lap, ready to go. She grabbed her purse from the backseat and took out her gun. The little SIG Reacher had first seen outside Gerrardsville when they began their journey together. She tucked it into a gap at the side of the driver’s seat, then felt Reacher watching her.

Hannah turned and looked at him. “Any other assholes try anything, I’ll be ready. No one’s going to sneak up on me. Not again.”

Reacher said, “You had much practice with that?”

“Hell, yes. Been shooting my whole life. It was the one thing about me my daddy didn’t hate.”

“You didn’t get along?”

“We did. When I was a little kid.”

“Your mom?”

“Died when I was eight.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Not your fault. No one’s fault. Guess it’s no one’s fault my daddy was a bigoted asshole, either, but hey. You play the hand you’re dealt. And he did teach me to shoot, which is how I got close to Sam. He worked at the prison. I worked with the parolees. In our free time we’d hang out at the range. So not all bad in the end.”

Patience is a virtue, Reacher’s father used to say. If he was right, then the drivers heading away from Winson that afternoon must have been a really despicable bunch.

Hannah’s job had been to block the single lane stretch of road in the construction zone. She had done it well. She had steered hard right onto the shoulder, reversed toward the line of cones, then swung back and forward four times until the truck was pretty much perpendicular. Her positioning was perfect. The truck’s nose was covering three-quarters of the shoulder. She hadn’t left enough space for anyone to squeeze around the rear. And she’d picked the ideal spot. A giant machine for tearing up the pavement was parked on the other side, so there was no future in anyone trying to move the cones.

Hannah had been stationary for two minutes when the next convoy came into view. The pilot led it closer. And closer. And he didn’t slow down. Hannah panicked for a moment. She thought the guy wasn’t going to stop. She had a vision of the vehicles plowing into the side of the truck. One after another. Blow after blow. The truck rolling over. Her getting crushed. Or burned alive. Or both.

The pilot must not have been concentrating. He had driven up and down that stretch of road hundreds of times since the construction project started. He had never come across any kind of obstruction. He had never expected to. So he noticed the truck late. But in time. Just. He threw all his weight on the brake. His wheels locked. His tires slid on the gravel. But he stopped with maybe a yard to spare.

The vehicles behind the pilot all braked, too. None of them collided. A couple honked their horns as if that would help. One driver pulled past the rest and tried to swing around the front of Hannah’s truck. He left the shoulder and started to bump across the rough strip of scrubland at the side of the road. He thought he was home and dry. He flipped Hannah off. Then his wheel hit a rut. His truck shuddered to a stop. It listed down toward one corner. There was only one explanation. Its axle was broken. And given the age and the condition of the vehicle its next stop was most likely going to be the scrap yard.

The driver jumped out and marched up to Hannah’s door. He tugged on the handle. It was locked so he started yelling at the window. Flecks of spittle sprayed all over the glass. Other drivers climbed down and joined him. Ten more of them. That was everyone except the pilot. He stayed in his cab and dialed 911. He figured that was his civic duty. And with that done he felt free to sit back and let the chips fall where they may.

By the time Reacher arrived there were four drivers behind Hannah’s truck. They were trying to shove it out of their way and getting nowhere. There were three drivers on one side, baying and screaming, and four on the other.

“Enough.” Reacher stopped six feet from the rear of the truck. “Be quiet. Get back in your vehicles.”

The guy from the stranded truck said, “No way. This asshole’s blocking the road. My rig’s messed up because of him. He’s got to pay.”

“Really? Because this is my truck. It’s here because I told the driver to block the road. If you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with me.”

Reacher looked at each driver, one at a time. Calmly. Levelly. Right in the eyes. Most of them started to edge away. A couple stayed still. The guy from the stranded truck stepped forward. “You know what? I do have a problem. My vehicle is totaled. If that’s on you then you better put your hand in your pocket.”

The drivers who had been moving all immediately stopped.

Reacher gestured to the stricken truck. It looked like it was trying to bury itself in the ground. “That thing?”

The guy nodded.

“Sorry, pal. I used my last quarter in a payphone, last week. You’re SOL.”

The guy swung at Reacher’s head with a wild right hook. Reacher leaned back and watched the fist sail harmlessly past. The guy’s shoulders twisted around and he wound up horribly off balance. All his weight was on his left leg. Reacher swept it out from under him. The guy pitched forward. He fell almost horizontally. Hit the dirt with his face. Tried to get up. But Reacher put his foot between his shoulder blades, pushed him back down, and held him in place.

Reacher said, “Guys, use your heads. You want to get going. I want to get going. But none of us can go anywhere while you’re hanging around like some lame-ass mob.”

No one spoke. No one moved. For a moment. Then a driver at the back of the crowd turned and slunk away. The guy who had been next to him followed. A couple more began to move. Then another couple until all the drivers were shuffling toward their vehicles, grumbling and muttering and shaking their heads. Reacher leaned down and rolled the guy on the ground over. He grabbed his shirt and hoisted him onto his feet. The guy scowled but stayed silent. Reacher shoved him into the lee of the truck where no one could see what would happen next.

Reacher said, “Is your truck really a write-off?”

The guy scowled. “I think so. I felt the suspension go.”

“How much is it worth?”

“Five grand.”

“How much in US dollars, here on planet Earth?”

“A grand. Maybe.”

Reacher pulled out his roll of cash, peeled off five hundred dollars, and handed it to the guy. “Here’s half. The other half is on you. Consider this a learning experience. Use better judgment in the future. If you had stayed on the road and shown a little patience, your truck would still be running.”

Jed Starmer was sitting at the side of the road. The messenger’s bike was lying on the shoulder, to his left, where it had fallen after he jumped off.

Jed stared at the bike and sighed. He hadn’t really jumped off. He had intended to. He had tried to. But his legs weren’t working the way they usually did. So he had pretty much fallen off, if he was honest. Staggered, maybe, or stumbled, if he wanted to put a positive spin on it.

The thing he couldn’t put a positive spin on lay to his right. The mountain. Or really, the hill. Or the slope. He had used the minutes he’d been sitting there to rein in his imagination. He wasn’t facing Mount Everest. Or the Eiger. Or Kilimanjaro. The rise was probably no more than a hundred feet. But whether it was a hundred or thirty thousand it made no difference. There was no way Jed could ride up it. He wouldn’t even be able to push the bike to the top, the way his legs were shaking. He would just have to sit where he was. Probably for the rest of his life, since no one was going to come and help him.

Hannah was the one with a credit card so she took care of the check-in process at the Winson Garden. Reacher was the one with the suspicious nature so he kept watch over the parking lot. The cop was the one with the orders to observe the stranger so he parked where he had a good view of the hotel’s entrance. Where he could make sure the stranger and his unexpected companion did go in. And didn’t come back out.

When she was done with the form filling and the bill paying, Hannah wheeled her suitcase across the reception area and handed a card key in a little cardboard wallet to Reacher. He took it and slipped it into his back pocket. Almost immediately a phone rang on the counter behind them.

The desk clerk answered it after one ring. “Winson Garden, Winson’s premier guest accommodations. How may I be of assistance today?” He listened for a moment then said in a much quieter voice, almost a whisper, “Yes, Officer. The woman did. The name on her card is Hannah Hampton. Her home address is in Gerrardsville, Colorado. She paid for two people. Two rooms. One night.” Then he nodded to no one in particular and dropped the receiver back into its cradle.

Reacher could feel the desk clerk staring at him. He could practically hear what the guy was thinking. He was wondering why the police were interested in these particular guests. Whether he would have a story to tell in the morning. And whether there would be any kind of a mess to clear up.

Jed Starmer didn’t know what he was looking for. Not exactly. He figured he was in the countryside so there might be a farm nearby. With a barn. Or a stable. Or a shed. He didn’t care if there were horses in it. Or cows. Or sacks of gross animal food. Or strange spiky machines. Just as long as it had walls. And a roof. And a door, which he could close. Where he would be safe. Just until he got his strength back.

Each step he took was harder than the one before. The trees were scattered around at random. They were close together so he had to weave his way between them. The undergrowth was thick and tangled. It constantly snagged his feet and ankles and made him stumble and almost fall. The earth was damp. It had a heavy, musty smell. Jed didn’t like it. It seemed dirty to him. Rotten. He imagined himself collapsing and the soil closing around him, engulfing his body, holding him forever as he slowly decomposed. He tried to go faster and some kind of insect scuttled away from under a decaying leaf. It was all legs and pincers and creepy antennae. He began to think he was worrying about the wrong size of animal. Then he heard a noise behind him. It sounded like a growl. He forced himself to keep moving. He had come too far to get eaten by some weird creature in a miserable stinking wood.

Jed squeezed between two more trees and emerged onto a track. It was wide enough for a vehicle to drive on and there were tire marks on the ground. They were broad and deep. The kind that are made by something heavy. Jed paused to get his bearings. He figured he’d been heading on a diagonal since he dumped the bike, and the track ran at a right angle from the road. So he could go left and wind up more or less where he started, which was familiar but exposed. Or he could go right. Deeper into the forest. Where he’d be hidden. But where he might be in other kinds of danger.

It occurred to Jed that the track must go somewhere specific. That was the whole point of tracks. People don’t cut them through the woods with no purpose in mind. Vehicles don’t drive around on them aimlessly. And the place the track led to might have some buildings. Some shelter. Which had to be better than where he was. Or the side of the road.

Jed went right.

He walked for what felt like ten miles, but he knew must only be a couple of hundred yards. There was no sign of any buildings. Nothing man-made. Not even a tree house. At least the track was easy to walk along. Jed stayed to the left and counted his steps. He tried to build up a rhythm. Then he picked up a sound. Something different from earlier. Not an animal. Jed was relieved. He thought it might be wind in the leaves, but discarded that theory. The air was too still. He realized it was water. He looked farther ahead and saw that the track came to an end at the side of a pond. A large one. Almost a small lake. Some unseen stream must feed it in a last act of independence before falling away and getting consumed by the raging Mississippi.

It was all Jed could do to not fling himself to the ground. The track must just be to support a bunch of recreational bullshit. People wanting to swim or kayak. Or fish. That thought gave rise to another. It made Jed wonder if he could catch something to eat. His stomach was a constant knot of pain. Even a tiny minnow would be welcome. Then he pushed the idea away. He had no rods or lines or hooks or whatever it was people use to snag fish. But maybe he could take a drink. If the water was fresh. If there was nothing rotting in it. Nothing that would poison him. He had seen TV shows where survivalists got all kinds of gross diseases from sipping bad water. He was scared to try. But he was also thirsty. Desperate for fluids in a way he hadn’t known was possible. He took a step toward the bank. He figured it couldn’t hurt to investigate a little. He took another step and through a gap in the leaves he caught sight of something unnatural. Artificial. Something with a right angle.

The right angle was the corner of a metal box, three feet by three feet by six feet. It was painted dull olive green. A color Jed associated with the army. There were military-style letters stenciled on the side, as well, in white. They read WINSON COUNTY VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT. And below, in a smaller size: AUTHORIZED USERS ONLY. The lid was held in place by a hasp and eye. There was no padlock. Jed unhooked it and lifted the lid. It folded all the way back, so he didn’t have to hold it up. Inside, to the left, there was some kind of machine mounted inside a scuffed red tubular frame. It had a handle like Jed had seen on lawn mowers, presumably to make it start. Coiled up in the space next to it there was a long flexible hose, three inches in diameter, with a mesh cage and a Styrofoam float at one end. There were two cans of gas. Two plastic containers full of pink liquid with labels attached with tables specifying how much to add to tanks of water to create fire-inhibiting foam. There was a box of flashlight batteries, but no flashlights. And two shrink packs of bottled water. Thirty-six bottles per pack.

Jed was not an authorized user. And he wasn’t a thief. But he was thirsty. He was close to full-on dehydration. Which was dangerous. And the point of fire departments is to save people. To help people in distress. So Jed grabbed the bottle at the nearest corner of the top pack. He pulled and twisted until it came free. Poured the water down his throat in one unbroken stream. Then he took another bottle. He drank that one more slowly, but finished it, too. He dropped the empties in the corner of the box. Removed the pack of batteries. The containers of foam mixture. The gas cans. And the hose. He tried to move the machine but it was too heavy so he left it where it was. Then he climbed inside. Pulled the lid down, with the empty bottles sandwiched against the lip of the box’s long side. That way he had some fresh air, but could quickly pull them out if any animals came by.

If any firefighters came and saw their supplies scattered around, that would take more explaining. Jed figured he’d find a way to deal with that, somehow. He’d come too far to worry about what-ifs.

The reception area at the Riverside Lodge had a double height domed ceiling painted to look like a blue sky with a few fleeting clouds. A chandelier hung down from its highest point. It was suspended directly over the center of a compass motif that was laid into the floor with black and white tile and gold dividers. The counter was made of mahogany. It was so shiny it almost glowed after decades of being polished by maids and getting rubbed by guests checking in and out. Reacher knew the hotel must be involved with computers since Hannah had made their reservation online, but none were visible. There was just a thick ledger, bound in green leather. An old school telephone, made of Bakelite with a brown braided cable. And a brass bell to summon attention when no one was waiting to help.

Reacher tapped the plunger on top of the bell and a moment later a guy scurried out from a back room. He looked like he was maybe twenty-five. He had blond hair, a little long but swept back in a neat, tidy style. He was wearing a gray suit. The creases in the pants were razor sharp. His shirt was pressed and his tie was properly knotted.

The guy said, “How can I assist you this evening?”

Reacher said, “I need two rooms.”

“Do you have a reservation?”

“No. This is a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Let me see what I can do.” The guy opened the ledger and took a fountain pen from his jacket pocket. “How many nights?”

“Let’s start with one. We’ll add more if we need them.”

“No problem. Our standard rate is $85 per night, per room.”

“Let’s say $100, cash, for rooms well away from your other guests.”

The guy glanced left, then right. “We only have three other guests presently. They’re all at the near end of the south wing. How about the two rooms at the far end? You won’t even know the others are there.”

“How about the north wing? Is it empty?”

“It is, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The refurbishment program hasn’t been completed yet.”

“Doesn’t matter to me.”

“To be honest, the refurb hasn’t actually started. The rooms are a bit of a mess.”

“Are they infested? Is there a health hazard of any kind?”

“No. They’re functional. Just a little on the scruffy side.”

“You could say the same about me.” Reacher glanced at the sign on the wall, which directed guests to the two wings. It showed that rooms 101 through 124 were to the north. “Give me 112. My friend will take 114. Assuming they’re adjacent?”

The guy nodded. “They are. Can I have your names?”

“Ambrose Burnside. Nat Kimball.”

The guy took the cap off his pen but Reacher leaned across and closed the ledger.

Reacher said, “$110 per night. You pocket the extra and save yourself the trouble of writing anything down.”

The guy said, “Sorry. Can’t do that.”

“There’s no such word as can’t. You have a simple choice. Pocket fifty dollars for doing absolutely nothing. Or – you don’t want to know about the alternative. Trust me. Be sensible. Take the money.”

The guy was still for a moment. Then he put the cap back on his pen. “It’s $110 every night, if you stay longer. Per room. In cash. To me only. None of my co-workers get to hear about this.”

Reacher counted out $220 and placed the cash on the counter. The guy scooped it up and slipped it into his back pocket. Then he took two white plastic rectangles out of a drawer. “One key each?”

Reacher shook his head. “Two.”

The guy shrugged and pulled out another pair. He poked some buttons on a little machine that was tucked almost out of sight on a low shelf and fed each card in turn into a slot. Then he slid the cards into a pair of cardboard wallets and handed them to Reacher. “Breakfast’s from six till eight. Enjoy your stay.”

Harold touched the key card against the pad on the door to room 112. The mechanism gave a soft click and a small light changed from red to green. Harold slammed down on the handle, shoved the door, and charged into the room like the corridor was on fire. Three guys followed him. The other opened the door to room 114. He was slower with the key. Less violent. More cautious as he stepped inside.

Room 112 followed a standard hotel layout. There was a simple closet to the left, open, with a rail and a shelf above. There was a bathroom opposite it. The room opened up beyond that with a bed and an armchair to the right. Both were loaded with too many pillows. There was a painting of a riverboat on the wall above the headboard. A window straight ahead covered with garish curtains. A desk to the left that did double duty as a dressing table. A mirror on the wall above it. And a carpet, which was threadbare in the places that saw the heaviest traffic.

Harold lumbered around to the bed and stopped. It was empty. He tapped the guy who was following him on the shoulder and pointed to the floor. The guy ducked down and lifted the bed skirt. He peered underneath, then stood back up and shook his head. Harold pointed to the bathroom. The guy nearest to it pulled back his right fist and pushed the door with his left hand. He reached inside. Flicked on the light. Took a half step. Another. Then went all the way in and checked behind the shower curtain that hung in front of the tub.

The guy came out of the bathroom and said, “It’s empty. Reacher’s gone. Maybe he was never here.”

Reacher was worried about the gunshot. The noise it had made. Someone was certain to have heard. The night clerk. Or the other guests, in the south wing. One of them was bound to call 911. Maybe they all would. Maybe they already had. One way or another the police would soon be showing up. And Reacher did not want to be around when they got there. The stealthy approach hadn’t worked. Now whoever was pulling the strings would have an emergency call and a dead body to work with. A perfect excuse to send in a couple more goons, guns blazing, no questions asked.

Winson was not a New York or a Chicago. It wasn’t even a Jackson. Reacher doubted the cops would be on patrol twenty-four/seven. Any presence was likely to be confined to the station house at that time of night. The best case would be one guy. Low down the pecking order. Alone with a pot of stewed coffee and a box of stale donuts. Someone who would have to call for assistance and wait for another officer to arrive before responding. The worst case would be that a pair of old hands were on duty. Trusted guys. Ready to roll at a moment’s notice. Ready to do whatever their boss told them to.

Reacher always planned for the worst. The town wasn’t far away. There would be no traffic. The cops would be local. They would know the road, and they would drive fast. He figured he and Hannah had nine minutes to get clear of the hotel.

Hannah woke Reacher at a minute after 7:30 a.m. She shook his shoulder and said, “Danny’s still not answering his phone. I’m getting worried. I think we should go to his place. Right now.”

Hannah crossed the street without saying a word. She climbed back into the VW, rested her elbows on the steering wheel, and held her head in her hands. Reacher decided to take a look around. He didn’t expect to find much. The fire hadn’t left much trace of anything, but old habits die hard. He was curious. And he wanted to give Hannah some time to herself.

There had been a lawn between the house and the street but the grass had been torn up by the firefighters’ boots and jagged channels had been cut through the dirt by runoff from the water they’d used to extinguish the flames. They couldn’t have gotten there very quickly, Reacher thought. There was so little of the structure left. It was like someone had judged things very carefully. Too late to save any of Danny Peel’s house. But in time to stop the flames from spreading to anyone else’s. He picked his way across the rough ground until he was close to what would have been the outer wall. He wondered where the door had been. The kitchen. The bedroom. He could believe the fire had started there. And maybe that a cigarette had been involved. But not that it was an accident. He’d been around the block too many times to swallow that kind of a story.

Reacher looked inside the mailbox. There were four envelopes. All junk. Presumably delivered before the fire. Then he moved on to the garage. It had two roll-up vehicle doors leading to the side street and a personnel door that would have faced the house. He tried the handle. It was locked. The door didn’t seem too stout so he leaned his shoulder against it and shoved. The tongue of the lock gouged a little strip out of the frame and it opened easily. Reacher stepped inside. There was a car in each bay. Both were Chevrolets. The closer one was a sedan, probably less than five years old. It was small and white and practical. The other was a Corvette, maybe from the 1960s. It was long and green and – presumably, if you were a car guy – fun. A wooden workbench stretched the whole width of the garage, against the far wall. Above it there were Peg-Boards that were covered with tools. Domestic ones to the left, like chisels and mallets and saws. Things for working on cars to the right, like spanners and wrenches and hammers. There was also a journal hanging from a hook, and a pen on a chain like they used to have in banks. Reacher looked in the journal. It was full of entries going back five years, neatly written in blue ink, giving details of all the jobs Danny had completed on the Stingray. He had done work on the brakes. Rust in the subframe. Water leaks. Electrical problems. A whole bunch of things, some large, some small, all faithfully recorded. He had been a meticulous guy. That was clear.

The coffee was strong, but it still couldn’t keep Lev Emerson awake long enough to reach the state line. He had no choice but to let Graeber drive for a while. He was counting on only napping for a couple of hours, just until he got his second wind, but when he woke up five hours had passed. The van was parked outside a square brick building, four miles north of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The building was the last in a line of three in a paved compound a stone’s throw from the river. It was surrounded by trees and a rusty chain-link fence. There was a single-width gate, which hadn’t been locked. Each building had two entrances. A vehicle door to the left, tall and wide enough for a van or small truck. And a personnel door to the right. Each had four windows in its second floor, square and dark beneath their crumbling concrete lintels.

Graeber waited for Emerson to get his bearings, then said, “Morning, boss.”

Emerson grunted and checked his mug for any last dregs of coffee.

Graeber said, “The other two buildings are deserted. This one doesn’t look much better but the locks are new. They’re solid. It’s in use.”

“Any sign of the guy?”

“Not yet.”

Emerson checked his watch. It was 8:30. He grunted again, a little louder this time.

Reacher counted thirty-nine people outside the prison, aside from Hannah and himself.

He knew why eleven of them were there. Jed Starmer had come to see his dad get released. The two camera operators and six security guards were getting paid. Bruno Hix, who had introduced himself as Minerva’s founder and CEO, was enjoying the sound of his own voice. And Damon Brockman, who also claimed to be a founder, was standing on the stage, looking smug. Reacher was less sure about the other twenty-eight. He couldn’t understand what kind of carrot or stick would make it worth the waste of their time.

Things livened up a little with just over ten minutes on the clock. Hix had been waffling about percentages and quoting philosophers, one minute waving his arms like he worked in an auction house, the next standing stiff and still like someone was shoving a stick up his ass. Then he stopped talking mid-statistic. An old pickup truck trundled into sight behind the crowd. Six people were perched in its load bed. The driver honked his horn and the nearest spectators moved out of the way. For a moment it looked set to make a run at the barrier. Reacher moved alongside Jed Starmer in case there was trouble. Then the truck stopped. The six guys jumped down. They produced placards that were covered with slogans about justice and profit. One showed a cartoon with Lady Justice’s scales weighed down with dollar bills. A guy raised a bullhorn. He started yelling demands that the prison close. The crowd didn’t like that. The mood turned ugly. Jeering broke out. The protestors were getting shoved and jostled. The security guards ran over to the fence, nightsticks drawn.

Hix jumped down from the stage, microphone in hand, and strode across to the fence. He said, “Stop. Let the people speak.”

The guy with the bullhorn took the microphone. He was silent for a moment, then mumbled his way through a litany of complaints and accusations.

Hix nodded and pulled a series of concerned expressions, then he took the microphone back and the sound immediately became clear and louder. He said, “My young friends, I’m glad you came here today. I’m glad–” Hix locked eyes with Reacher and suddenly he couldn’t find his voice. He stuttered and spluttered for a moment, then tore his gaze away. “I’m glad you care about fairness and humanity. If you were outside another correctional corporation’s facility, there’s a very good chance you’d be right. But here, I’m glad to say, you’re wrong. Minerva cares for the health of those who reside within our walls. Minerva cares for safety. For education. For unlocking potential. And” – Hix turned and dashed back to the stage – “we care about righting wrongs wherever we find them. But don’t just take my word for it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Anton Begovic.”

A flap in the tent that was covering the prison entrance opened and a man stepped out. He was wearing a dark suit and a tie and his hair looked freshly cut. He stood for a moment, blinking in the sunlight. Then Brockman, who had done nothing up to that point, jumped down, took the guy’s arm, and helped him onto the stage.

The guy took the microphone and stepped forward. “Thank you all for being here. Thank you, Mr. Hix. Thank you, Mr. Brockman. And most of all, thank you to the Minerva corporation and everyone who is associated with it. When others wanted to lock me up, they fought to set me free. I am truly grateful, and I swear with you all as my witnesses that I will make the most of every second that has been given back to me.”

The guy waved, then Hix and Brockman shepherded him off the other side of the stage and into the BMW.

Jed ducked and tried to scramble under the barrier.

Reacher grabbed him, pulled him back, and wrapped an arm around his chest.

Jed wriggled and squirmed. “Let me go. I need to get to my dad. He’s not messed up. You guys are wrong.”

“I can’t let you go, Jed,” Reacher said. “Because that man is not your dad.”

Reacher left the cover of the trees and approached the house from the southeast. Toward the rear corner. He climbed up onto the porch railing and wrapped his left arm around the column that supported the balcony. He used his right hand to slip the coiled-up blankets from around his neck. He held one end and swung the rest of the length around in an arc. Once. Twice. Then as it neared the top of its third rotation he snapped it in toward the house and straight back out, like a lion tamer with an oversized whip. The tip curled around the column and dropped straight down the other side. Reacher caught it with his left hand. He brought his hands close and gripped both strands together. He shifted the soles of his feet onto the face of the column. Moved his left hand up and pulled. Took a step vertically with his right foot. Moved his right hand. Stepped with his left foot. He kept going until he could grab the upper rail then he hauled himself up and over and rolled onto the balcony.

Reacher got to his feet. He stood still and listened. He heard nothing.

Along the side of the house a row of glass doors led out to the balcony. There were four. Maybe from bedrooms. They were all closed and, inside, white drapes were drawn across them. For privacy. Or to combat the heat.

Reacher moved around to the back of the house. The balcony boards were solid. His feet made no noise. He looked down into the yard. It was an even space, fifty feet square, carved out from the trees and covered with grass. Hix must have been getting ready for a party. There was a bar to the left with a line of silver buckets for ice, tables with trays of plastic cups, and two giant trash cans done up to look like Greek urns. In the center of the lawn a space had been covered to make a temporary dance floor. And there was a stage to the right with a drum kit, microphone stands, and a lighting gantry extending across its whole width.

Reacher continued around the balcony until he found what he was looking for. A sash window with frosted glass. A bathroom. He took out his ATM card and pushed it up into the jamb between the upper and lower panes. He worked it from side to side until the latch eased around and disengaged. He lifted the lower section an inch and looked inside. He saw a tub. A sink. A toilet. But no people. He opened the window the rest of the way and climbed through. He crossed to the door. Opened it a crack. Saw no one. He carried on to the landing. It was a broad U shape with an ornate rail around the open side, like an internal version of the balcony. The hallway was below. The stairs were at the far end. Voices were echoing up from the first floor. Three men. They sounded familiar. And they sounded angry.

The watchtowers were no longer regularly used, but they were still connected to the meshed-in walkways that crisscrossed the prison site. Reacher climbed down the ladder and started toward the building that housed the control center. He knew where it was because he had made Hix draw a diagram.

Reacher passed through five doors along the way. They were all secured. Hix’s ID card opened all of them. The final one was the control center itself. Beyond that point the doors were designated operational, not administrative. That meant they could only be operated remotely. Which was the whole point of Reacher’s visit.

There were two people on duty when Reacher entered the control room. Both men. Both in their late fifties. Both with enough miles on the clock to make sound decisions in times of stress. That was the theory. A hypothesis based more on the likelihood of escape attempts and riots than a one-man incursion. Even an incursion by one man who could do as much damage on his own as a medium-sized riot. But either way the theory held water. Reacher gave the guys instructions. They followed to the letter without argument. They didn’t even balk when Reacher locked them in the storage cupboard and broke the key in the outside of the lock.

Reacher checked the display on the access control panel. It was rudimentary, but easy to interpret. The symbols representing all the doors between the control center and the segregation unit S1 were green. The other doors were all red. That was what he wanted to see so Reacher took the hammer from the pillowcase and smashed the controls. Then he smashed all the CCTV monitors. There was no way he would be able to disable all the cameras on his route. Not easily. And not quickly. But there was no sense in leaving any potential relief crew with the ability to use any of them.

There were five more doors to pass through before Reacher would get to Begovic’s cell. The first two were in sections of the mesh walkway. Reacher was completely exposed while he was in there. He was in the heart of enemy territory. Massively outnumbered. Completely outgunned. If either of the doors didn’t open he would have a serious problem. Or if there was some anti-infiltration system he was unaware of, ready to kick in and trap him. Or a backup control panel. Or an automatic reset procedure. He knew there were all kinds of ways he might not leave the place alive.

Reacher approached the first door slowly. Calmly. He stretched out a hand. Pushed. The door swung open. So did the second. The third led from the mesh walkway to a covered corridor. A smaller space. Completely enclosed. He would be like a rat caught in a drainpipe if the doors froze. The third opened. So did the fourth, which led into the segregation unit itself. Reacher was at the center of the cross, on the first floor. Above him were the three rooms that formed the unit’s command hub. In the middle of each wall a door led to one of the cell wings. Reacher needed the west wing. He identified the door. The fifth. He pushed. It opened.

Reacher paused and looked at each cell door in turn. There were sixteen. Fifteen of these were always unlocked because the wing was not officially in commission. It was only being used for under-the-table projects. Hix had sworn that Begovic would be the only person locked up in there. But if he had tucked a couple of tame psychopaths away in the place, Hix might have thought it was a lie he could get away with.

Reacher listened. He picked up the sound of someone moving. Two people. In the first cell on his right. W1. Hix had described it as a transport preparation area. The door was standing open an inch. Reacher pushed it the rest of the way. Inside, there was an operating table. A metal trolley covered with surgical tools. A cabinet full of drugs. Two drip stands. A heart monitor. A person-sized metal box with a 12V car-style battery at one end to power the system that controlled its internal temperature, like a futuristic travel coffin. A defibrillator mounted on the wall. And two men wearing scrubs.

One of the men grabbed a scalpel from the trolley and lunged at Reacher. Straight forward. Going for Reacher’s gut. But with no power. No venom. The guy was no knife fighter. That was for sure. Reacher knocked his arm aside, continued to spin, building momentum, and punched the guy just below his ear. The force hurled him across the operating table and into the narrow gap next to the wall.

Reacher turned to the other guy. He was standing with his hands up. He said, “Don’t hurt me. I won’t cause you any trouble. I’ll do anything you want.”

“You’re getting ready to prepare Begovic?”

“I guess. They don’t tell us names.”

“You’re going to chop him up?”

“God, no. The buyer does that. We send the bodies out whole.”

“Who’s the buyer?”

“I don’t know.”

Reacher stepped closer.

The guy said, “I swear. It’s way above my pay grade. But there’s a rumor. This one’s going to our biggest customer. They work out of a ship. Off the Jersey coast. In international waters. Where there are no regulations.”

“So the guys on the ship cut him up. And do what? Store his body parts until they’re needed?”

“Eventually. He’ll stay alive while only nonessential organs are harvested. You know. Corneas. One kidney. Skin. Some kinds of bone. The big joints. And blood. Blood replenishes itself, so it makes sense to keep him alive as long as possible.”

“How much are all those things worth?”

“They use everything, once he’s dead. It comes to $800,000, maybe.”

“You send people to this place. People who are alive when they leave here.”

“It’s my job. I just do what I’m told.”

Reacher felt the bile rising from his stomach so he stepped forward, butted the guy in the face, and went back out into the corridor.

Emerson and Graeber found the place they were looking for outside Winson with no difficulty. Graeber was driving the black van that was expected at the rendezvous. Emerson was driving the white one. They continued for a quarter of a mile after they spotted the premises then pulled over to the side of the road to figure out their next move.

They were in good time. The area was secluded. The layout looked straightforward. The only issue either of them could see was gaining entry. The site wasn’t the most secure they had ever encountered but they were used to working in deserted buildings. Here they would be dealing with at least one person. Maybe more. And they needed to take supplies in with them. The barrel, in particular. Which meant getting the gate open. And doing it quietly.

The best scenario either of them could come up with was that the guy they were looking to surprise was already there. If he was, they could let the chloroform do its work then make as much noise as necessary with the gate. They could dynamite the damn thing if they wanted to.

They spent two more minutes kicking around their options then settled on a plan. A simple one, which was the kind Emerson liked best. They would leave the vehicles where they were for the moment. Take the lightweight stepladder, a tarp, and a rope from the white van. Climb the wall. Recce all the buildings in the compound. Bring the chloroform. And hope they would get lucky.

Reacher grabbed the stock of the nearer guard’s gun and pushed it up toward the ceiling. He kicked the second guard in the balls. Butted the nearer guard in the face. And kicked the second guard in the head before he could crawl away.

Begovic ran to the door that led to the exit corridor. It was locked.

The guy in the suit didn’t move. He said, “You must be Reacher. Hell of an entrance.”

Reacher collected the rifles and slung them over his shoulder. “Who are you?”

The guy didn’t reply.

Begovic said, “His name’s Riverdale. The warden. He’s a complete asshole.”

Reacher said, “Riverdale? OK. Time to redeem yourself. These doors need to open.”

Riverdale stayed silent for a moment. Then he said, “No problem. I can do that. You just need to do one thing for me first.”

Reacher said nothing.

Riverdale pointed at Begovic. “Kill him. Blow his head off. Then you can walk out of here.”

Reacher shook his head. “I can see why you don’t want him walking around, free. But that doesn’t work for me.”

Riverdale said, “This is one of those the-good-of-the-many-versus-the-good-of-the-few things. Shoot him, that’s one dead person. If you don’t shoot him, I can’t let you take him with you. That’s a given. So the doors will stay locked until more of my guys arrive.”

“Have you got any more guys?”

“Plenty more. They’ll kill both of you. You’ll probably manage to kill me before you bleed out. So that’s three dead people. Three dead is worse than one. It’s three times as bad. That’s ethics 101. So I’m asking you. Do the moral thing. Hell, even Begovic probably sees the logic.”

Begovic said, “Screw the logic.”

Reacher said, “Logic. No logic. It still doesn’t work for me.”

Riverdale said, “OK. I’ll sweeten the pot. Kill him. We both walk. I give you a million dollars, cash. I hear you’re broke. This is your chance to live like a prince.”

“I have everything I need. Everything I want. Which makes me better off than any prince. So no dice.”

“Look around, Reacher. Look at this place. Do you really want to die here? Today?”

“Everyone has to die someday. Someplace.”

“But here? Now?”

“I don’t see that happening. Not unless a random meteorite lands on us.”

“No? So what’s your proposal?”

“Open the doors. Watch us walk out.”

“Be serious.”

“Open the doors. Shoot yourself in the head. Don’t watch us walk out.”

Riverdale was silent for a moment, then he said, “Are you married, Reacher?”

Reacher said, “No.”

“You ever been married?”

“No.”

“Girlfriend? Significant other?”

“No.”

“OK. Given you’re homeless and destitute, I’m guessing you don’t get much action. So I have an idea. Might tip the scales.” Riverdale took out his phone and speed-dialed a number. When the call was answered he said, “Reacher’s neutralized. I need to get back to my office. Turn the power back on and unlock the doors between S1 and there.”

The clock in Reacher’s head told him it was time to leave. He grabbed Begovic and led the way out of Unit C. He was still convinced they would cross paths with a guard. Or a squad of guards called back on duty to deal with the ruckus that had resulted from the fire alarm. But again the unrest served their purpose. They made it to Unit S1 undetected.

The two guys who had been backing Riverdale’s play were still on the floor. They were still unconscious. Reacher dragged them through the door he had disabled and shoved them into the preparation cell. He gave each another kick in the head to make sure they wouldn’t make an unwelcome appearance any time soon. He did the same to the pair of medics he’d left there earlier. He removed the magazine and dumped one of the rifles on the operating table. Checked the tan SIG. Then he went back out into the hub.

Reacher unslung the other rifle from his shoulder and said to Begovic, “Put your hands behind your back like they’re tied. Look at the floor. Play along with whatever I say.”

A minute later the door to the unit’s south wing swung open. Two guys came through. They had a heavy-duty gurney. One was pushing. One was pulling. The guy in the lead said, “What’s the story here? Why–”

The guy stopped talking. He was looking at Reacher. He couldn’t understand why someone he didn’t recognize was there. Apparently in authority. Who wasn’t part of the program. He glanced across to Begovic. He couldn’t understand why the prisoner was standing upright. Why he was still conscious. Why he wasn’t boxed up, ready for transport. The guy’s brain struggled for a second. It was trying to fit all the pieces together. Then it quit the puzzle. It didn’t matter what the exact picture was. Because whatever shape it took, something was wrong. That was obvious. So he let go of the gurney and his hand darted toward his pocket.

Reacher didn’t know if the guy was going for a gun or a phone. He didn’t wait to find out. He stepped forward and spun the rifle around as he moved. Then he drove the flat end of its stock into the bridge of the guy’s nose. The guy collapsed onto the gurney then rolled off its side. He crashed down onto the floor and lay still, facedown, with blood pooling steadily around his head.

“Don’t move.” Reacher reversed the rifle and pointed it at the guy who’d been pushing the gurney. “You can show us the way out. Or I can take you to one of the exercise yards. There are about a hundred guys there who would make you very welcome. That’s for sure. OK. You have five seconds to decide.”

Reacher carried Hannah through the gap in the gates and laid her down in the back of the van he’d taken from the prison. Begovic followed and placed Jed next to her. Maurice trailed along at the rear. He didn’t want to be left alone in the yard with the dead bodies.

Reacher closed the van’s doors and turned to Begovic. “Can you drive?”

Begovic said, “I guess. I used to be able to. But that was fifteen years ago.”

“The principle hasn’t changed.” Reacher held out the keys. “Go half a mile up the road. Then pull over and stay there until I join you.”

Lee Child is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher series and the complete Jack Reacher story collection, No Middle Name. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Lee Child lives in New York City and Wyoming.

jackreacher.com

Facebook.com/​LeeChildOfficial

Twitter: @LeeChildReacher

To inquire about booking Lee Child for a speaking engagement, please contact the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at

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